[SOLVED] Getting RT2561/RT61 wireless to work

[Zef_]

Hey guys, was just wondering, as the rt2500 is supposed to be recognised by Fedora out of the box, albeit with not so great drivers I hear. But my card is alas not showing up it seems. I've tried lspci and get a command not found, so I guess thats a debian based thing, as I've only used ubuntu thus far really.

So I don't really know if this is normal, and I should just go ahead and try to manually install the drivers or what. I can't be lugging my machine down to the router to connect it with a normal ethernet cable as it sits in a narrow hall, so will need to do all configuring on my desktop manually. I was hoping it would just work, as I had Sabayon installed previously and the rt2500 *kind of* worked on there without any config needed.

So should i just do the ndiswrapper method which to be honest is slightly confusing for someone new who expected his rt2500 to just work as it's in the list of supported wireless cards at the fsf hardware page.

Any help for the clueless newbie much appreciated.

Edit: Ok, KInfoCenter tells me that it is a RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g, but that's the only place that the card shows up.
Sooo, does that mean it's not specifically an rt2500 or what? The fsf list the Conceptronics C54Ri as being compatible, and that is definitely the model I have.

[FriedChips]

try

/usr/sbin/lspci

[Zef_]

nope, /usr/sbin/lspci gives a 'no such file or directory'. But I have found out that the card lists itself as an RT2561/RT61 in KInfoCenter. I'm using the KDE version of Fedora 64bit.

[leigh123linux]

try

/sbin/lspci

[root@localhost ~]# /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f2)
00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:07.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
01:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 0a)
01:09.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 0a)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1)
[root@localhost ~]#

[Zef_]

Thanks, that worked, It gives the output, same as KInfoCenter:

Network Controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g

How will I go about making the network manager actually see this as a network device though? So far I can only see my standard ethernet connection in there.

[leigh123linux]

try this

su -
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
yum install kmod-ndiswrapper
reboot

then follow this guide from #9 onwards

http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?...0&#entry195963

[Zef_]

sorry, double post, dunno how that happened

[Zef_]

Thanks man. I assume I can do all this installation manually, i.e without being connected to the internet? It'll be a bit of a pain to lug the machine down into hallway to get it working. I'm writing this from my laptop atm.

I have to say, looking at those instructions I am rather intimidated. This card was supposed to be supported 'well' by linux. I bought it so as not to have an insane amount of hassle installing it. Is this going to be the case with this card on all distros, or is it something that Fedora has specific trouble with?

Oh and those suse instructions mention YaST, but Wikipedia tells me that is a Suse tool. How do I do those steps on Fedora? I don't get it

[leigh123linux]

Sorry you will need to be connected to run these commands ( it is unlikely that you installed enough to compile this from source so this would be the easiest method )

as for yast stop at # 14 and post back

[Zef_]

Righto - will shift the pc downstairs and give it a whirl. Thanks a lot for you very prompt feedback dude.

[Zef_]

Ok I have ndiswrapper installed and I have rebooted successfully. In order to start step 9 of thost instruction, I need to use some windows drivers, so should I just use the drivers included on the network card's install cd, and if so should I use the windows 64 bit drivers since i'm on Fedorax64, or should i use some other drivers?

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by Zef_

Ok I have ndiswrapper installed and I have rebooted successfully. In order to start step 9 of thost instruction, I need to use some windows drivers, so should I just use the drivers included on the network card's install cd, and if so should I use the windows 64 bit drivers since i'm on Fedorax64, or should i use some other drivers?

Yes use the 64 bit drivers on your cd

[Zef_]

Ok I have completed step 13 successfully it seems.

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by Zef_

Ok I have completed step 13 successfully it seems.

Can you post the output from the last few commands that you did

[Zef_]

[root@localhost WINX64]# ndiswrapper -i rt61.inf
installing rt61 ...
[root@localhost WINX64]# ndiswrapper -l
rt61 : driver installed
device (1814:0302) present (alternate driver: rt61pci)
[root@localhost WINX64]# ndiswrapper -m
adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper ...
[root@localhost WINX64]# depmod -a
[root@localhost WINX64]# modprobe ndiswrapper
[root@localhost WINX64]#