RT2500 Fedora 7 With ndiswrapper

[linnerd40]

Hello Fedora community!
Hoping for some help here. I just installed Fedora 7, and my rt2500 wireless card just will not work. I have tried every guide I can find on this forum and anywhere else online.. I can't get it to work! Not sure if its me, the card, or Fedora, but the card is working great in Ubuntu and Windows.
Ok, so here is my story:

Today I once again tried to get my wireless card working in Fedora 7. Still no success.
The Linux drivers I was using for the card just weren't working, so I decided to try using the Windows drivers through ndiswrapper. Using ndiswrapper, I successfully installed the Windows drivers for my wireless card which I got of the driver CD. To get the driver installed I issued the following command in the directory of the .inf and .sys files:

# /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i rt2500.inf

After that I ran

#/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

Just to make sure that the driver was loaded. After this I opened up the /etc/modprobe.conf file and added the new line:

alias ra0 ndiswrapper

I then proceeded with configuring the card through the Network configuration tool. The card was properly recognized as ra0. After configuring the card, I hit activate and crossed my fingers...
Well, it failed. It didn't give me the error this time saying that the card wasn't present (as it had when I use the drivers from RaLink's website and the ones from the rt2x00 project. It just wasn't able to retrieve any ip information.

Can anybody here help me out a bit? Or at least point me to a way that will work?

Thanks a million!

-linnerd40

[VictorienSardou]

in a command line:
what is the output from /sbin/iwconfig ra0
what is the output from /sbin/iwlist ra0 scan
what is the output from cat /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-ra0

[linnerd40]

Here are the outputs:
iwconfig ra0:

ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:"" Nickname:"localhost"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level:-120 dBm Noise level:-79 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


iwlist ra0 scan:

ra0 Failed to read scan data : Resource temporarily unavailable

and from ifcfg-ra0:

# Please read /usr/share/doc/initscripts-*/sysconfig.txt
# for the documentation of these parameters.
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=ra0
HWADDR=00:0e:2e:5c:9c:31
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
ESSID=stratmann_nw
CHANNEL=6
MODE=Managed
RATE=Auto

When I assign an essid with "/sbin/iwconfig ra0 essid network"
it doesn't want to "stick" or it doesn't get applied, because essid is blank the when I run iwconfig ra0.

Not sure what is going on. Thanks for you help, but my time with Fedora 7 is over (I was testing it as part of a summer plan to test a wide range of distros). Maybe I'll spend some more time it later.
Thanks again!

[spot221]

Hi,

Not sure if this is the problem however, the 2x00 module is installed by default. If you want to use ndiswrapper you may need to add that module to the blacklist inorder to get your card to work. That is what I had to do to get the older drivers (rt73) to work.

[hramat]

It seems that I have same problem, but with BCM4306 802.11b/g I have installed ndiswrapper from livna rep. and have loaded same driver as using in winxp, I have also blacklisted bcm43xx-mac80211, I can see al possible wireless connections in the range but cannot connect to them.

output of those tree commands

# /sbin/iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm   
          RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B   
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

# /sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:50:18:47:D8:66
                    ESSID:"hramat"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality:81/100  Signal level:-44 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100
                    Extra:atim=0

# cat /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-wlan0
# Please read /usr/share/doc/initscripts-*/sysconfig.txt
# for the documentation of these parameters.
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
HWADDR=00:0b:6b:4b:76:a0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ONBOOT=no
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
ESSID=hramat
CHANNEL=11
MODE=Auto
RATE=Auto

[VictorienSardou]

hramat: you have mode=Auto in yout ifcfg-wlan0.
you should try mode=Managed

[hramat]

Thanx for help.
So I have changed Mode to Managed but It didn't helped. I also enabled to load wireless during booting but it didn't connect also (I remember that with FC5 it worked). Can't the problem be connected with enabled 4K stack size or with blacklist 2x00 module? Why should I blacklist 2x00 module? What is its purpose?
I used ndiswrapper with that driver two weeks ago with ubuntu and it just worked without any big problem so it has to be connected with some fedora stuff running behind.

[ramasees]

hi if you want to remove rx00 and broadcom drivers you can do it by this command

su -
rm -rf /lib/modules/2.6.21-1.3228.fc7/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/mac80211/rt2x00; depmod

of course if your kernel ver is different you will need to adjust (uname -r)

[hramat]

can I just that simply erase those drivers and run depmod?

[hramat]

nice, removing those drivers works quite nice but It didn't solve my problem. I have additional question, can I remove all of those drivers from /lib/modules/2.6.21-1.3228.fc7/kernel/drivers/net/wireless I guess I don't need them.

[ramasees]

ok heres what i have done on my pci rt2500 on my laptop and used rutilt to connect to my network

su
rm -rf /lib/modules/2.6.21-1.3228.fc7/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/mac80211/rt2x00; depmod
wget http://kwizart.free.fr/fedora/kwizar...e-7.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivh kwizart-release-7.noarch.rpm
yum --enablerepo kwizart install RutilT
wget http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt2500-cvs-daily.tar.gz
tar -xvf rt2500-cvs-daily.tar.gz
cd rt2500*
cd Module
make
make install

then restart bear in mind this will remove any other current rtx00 drivers and broadcom installed

[jmtdstoc]

If you follow this hot-to I wrote here on Fedora Forums you will have your rt2500 card working in Fedora with Network Manager without any problems.

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...00+ndiswrapper