HOWTO: Native rt2860, rt2870 & rt3070 wireless drivers for Fedora

[ogetbilo]

The rt2860 and rt2870 chipsets from Ralink is used in many wireless USB cards

Update on November, 2011: The device drivers in newer stock kernels fully support rtxxx0 devices for which I once prepared the RPM files below. Hence from Fedora 16 onwards, I am dropping my support on these RPMS; the RPMs will not be shipped by RPMFusion.

Ralink provides native linux drivers on their website:
http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2
but they don't compile against Fedora kernels. The Fedora kernel devs backported some features from kernel 2.6.27 down to 2.6.25 and 2.6.26 and this breaks the driver code for these kernel versions.
The following howto is for installing patched drivers that work with current Fedora kernels.

Rpmfusion is dribble/livna/freshrpms repositories merged together and will not cause conflicts with them.
Having made that clear, let me explain two different ways of installing the kernel module from rpmfusion.

Note: rt2860 users: Replace every rt2870 you see below with rt2860 and you'll be fine.

Note: rt2870 users: If your card does not work with the rt2870 driver, please try the rt3070 one. It may (or may not) support your card.

Note: rt3070 users: Replace every rt2870 you see below with rt3070 and you'll be fine

1. If you want to add the rpmfusion repo to your repo's:
If you have the livna repository enabled, doing a yum update will automatically install the rpmfusion repo. For all other cases you can visit
this link, which explains how to add the rpmfusion repository. In short do (one line)

rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

After this run a

yum install rt2870

and the rt2870 driver will be installed for the latest kernel.

2. If you don't want to add the rpmfusion repo to your repo's (MORE ADVANCED):


EITHER:

A- Browse through rpmfusion repository and grab your rpm files
You need 3 files:
rt2870-<version>.noarch.rpm
kmod-rt2870-<version>.<your_arch>.rpm
kmod-rt2870-<kernel-version>-<version>-<your_arch>.rpm

Install them altogether because they'll depend on each other

rpm -ivh *rt2870*.rpm

OR:

B- Download the source RPM's and compile them yourself.
Go to rpmfusion-testing's SRPM directory. You should download 2 src.rpm's:
rt2870-<version>.src.rpm
rt2870-kmod-<version>.src.rpm
Make sure you have a RPM BUILD environment. This page explains how to create one.
You can then build your rpm's via (don't do this as root!)

rpmbuild --rebuild rt2870-<version>.src.rpm
rpmbuild --rebuild rt2870-kmod-<version>.src.rpm --define "kernels $(uname -r)" --target $(uname -m)

Now you will have 2 RPM's in your ~/rpmbuild/RPMS directory.
One will be under arch the other will be in your own arch.
So these command will install them. As root:

cd /home/<user_name>/rpmbuild/RPMS/
rpm -ivh */*rt2870*.rpm

Here,
<user_name> is the user who ran the above rpmbuild commands.

[pmurphy]

Excellent post ogetbilo.

However for those of us using a Linksys WUSB100, you need to add one line to the header include/rt2870.h

within (line 85) #define RT2870_USB_DEVICES

This I guess defines what USB devices are supported in manufacturer ID/device ID pairs.

add the line

{USB_DEVICE{0x1737,0x0070)}, \

to the list of devices. Then patch, run make and install as previously stated.

Hopefully this helps, it did work with mine, your results may vary.

[hotdog]

Good stuff, it works perfectly with the rt2860sta internal wireless in my Eee PC 901 too.

In fact (on my system at least) you can simplify the installation procedure slightly, the make install script takes care of putting the RT28xxSTA.dat file in /etc/Wireless/RT28xx/ and I didn't need to create an alias in /etc/modprobe.d to get the module loaded at boot either. Basically all I had to do was download the driver source, unpack it, apply the patch, change the WPA options in os/linux/config.mk, make, make install and reboot.

[hotdog]

Update: the new kernel (2.6.26.3-29.fc9) causes the Ralink driver to fail to build, details here. We need an updated patch which replaces instances of 'dev->nd_net' with 'dev_net(dev)', at least for builds against 2.6.26 kernels.

[ogetbilo]

Thanks folks.

pmurphy,
I'll add that line to the patch.

hotdog,
I am going to write a more general patch that will cover all the kernel versions 2.6.24,2.6.25,2.6.26 . I will post the patch in this thread in a few days. Other than this, I will also try to build a kmod or akmod package, and post it on rpmfusion/livna so it will be less hassle for people.

Edit: I just realized that the change you mentioned ('dev->nd_net' with 'dev_net(dev)') is already there in the code in the rt2870 driver against 2.6.26 kernels and above. No need to add another patch for this (at least for rt2870).

[dutc2006]

I have fedora 9 with a linksys WUSB100 and when I patch the file os/linux/sta_ioctl.c it fails all 12 hunks, what might have i done wrong or what more info might help you help me...Thanks!

[ogetbilo]

Did you download the correct file? There is other drivers on that page. Make sure you get the right one.
By the way, I submitted a kmod package to rpmfusion for rt2870. It should be in rpmfusion testing repos soon.
Sorry for the late reply.

Edit: I see that they updated the driver tarball. The patch is probably not necessary anymore. I will check it out tomorrow and update the howto.

Edit2: I updated the HOWTO. Now things will be a lot easier for both rt2860 and rt2870 users.

[ogetbilo]

UPDATE (Oct 22nd, 2008): Well, we got some positive feedback and released the new drivers at rpmfusion. So this post does not mean much anymore.

Hello everyone. Do you want to help rpmfusion?
Ralink released a new rt2860 driver on their webpage and we need testers for it.
We -at rpmfusion- don't own any hardware with this chipset hence we cannot test it ourselves. If these RPM's work (or don't work) please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated, not only by us but also by other rt2860 users.
Step 0:
Please uninstall/remove the rt2860 drivers you have (if you have any). To check if you have any drivers installed in the kernel-modules tree of the kernel that you are currently using, do a

du -a /lib/modules/`uname -r`|grep 2860

If nothing comes up, you are good

Step 1a:
The rt2860 driver RPM's for 2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686 and 2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64 kernels can be found at
http://oget.fedorapeople.org/rt2860/

You will need 3 RPMs:
kmod-rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.<your_arch>.rpm
kmod-rt2860-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.<your_arch>-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.<your_arch>.rpm
rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.noarch.rpm
where <your_arch> is either i686/x86_64.

(Step 1b:
If you don't have a i686 or a x86_64 computer; or if you don't have the 2.6.26.5-45 kernel installed you can build your own RPM's from the 2 SRPM's on the same page: http://oget.fedorapeople.org/rt2860/

To build your RPM's you have to use

rpmbuild --rebuild rt2860*.src.rpm --define "kernels $(uname -r)" --target $(uname -m)

rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.src.rpm will produce 1 no arch RPM
rt2860-kmod-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.src.rpm will produce 1 arch-specific RPM. )


Step 2:
Please install the all the RPM's you have (or created) simultaneously (with "rpm -ivh --nodeps") and test out the driver.

After installing the RPM's you can plugin your card. If you see lights going on on your card that probably means it works. You can also check (as root)

lsmod |grep 2860

to see whether the module (most likely: rt2860sta) is loaded or not.
----


If you don't know and don't want to know how to build your own RPM's you can send a message to me with your kernel version and architecture so I can build the specific RPM's for you.

Thank you!

[bgsmith]

I built the source files on FC8 but from some reason do not get a kmod-rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm from the rpmbuild process. Will these source files build on FC8?

Thanks

Brad

[ogetbilo]

WARNING: This message is outdated due to a change in a previous message. Please don't take this into account.

They should build on FC8.

rpmbuild --rebuild rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.src.rpm --define "kernels $(uname -r)" --target $(uname -m)

will build a rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.noarch.rpm and put it in /home/<your_username>/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/
whereas

rpmbuild --rebuild rt2860-kmod-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.src.rpm --define "kernels $(uname -r)" --target $(uname -m)

will build two rpm's:
kmod-rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm
kmod-rt2860-<kernel_version>.fc8.x86_64-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm
and put them into /home/<your_username>/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/

Did you build them as root (I would certainly not recommend it)? But if you did you will have the RPM's built in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/noarch and /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/x86_64 instead.

Thank you for trying this driver

PS: If you are totally lost, tell me your kernel version (uname -r), I will build the RPM's for you.

[bgsmith]

Thanks for the reply when I execute

[bgsmith@pico rt2]$ rpmbuild --rebuild rt2860-kmod-1.8.0.0-0.fc9.src.rpm --define "kernels $(uname -r)" --target $(uname -m)

I get the following (trimmed) output:

.
.
.

Processing files: kmod-rt2860-2.6.26.3-14.fc8-1.8.0.0-0.fc8
Provides: kernel-modules-for-kernel = 2.6.26.3-14.fc8 rt2860-kmod = 1.8.0.0-0.fc8
Requires(interp): /bin/sh /bin/sh
Requires(rpmlib): rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1
Requires(post): /bin/sh /sbin/depmod
Requires(postun): /bin/sh /sbin/depmod
Requires: kernel-x86_64 = 2.6.26.3-14.fc8 rt2860-kmod-common >= 1.8.0.0
Processing files: rt2860-kmod-debuginfo-1.8.0.0-0.fc8
Requires(rpmlib): rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
Checking for unpackaged file(s): /usr/lib/rpm/check-files /var/tmp/rt2860-kmod-1.8.0.0-0.fc8-root-bgsmith
Wrote: /home/bgsmith/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/kmod-rt2860-2.6.26.3-14.fc8-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm
Wrote: /home/bgsmith/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/rt2860-kmod-debuginfo-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm
Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.46602
+
.

I admit that I do not do much with rpmbuild but this tells me two rpms were built, one of which is debug information. I cannot find kmod-rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm.

So it appears that for some reason one of the two expected RPMs is not generated. I suspect it is operator (me) error.

Thanks for the help.

Brad

[ogetbilo]

Brad, it's my bad sorry. We usually build the kmod's in a different and slightly more complicated way. I tried to find an easy way of building them for regular users and I seem to be failed.

You can force install the two RPM's

rpm -ivh --force --nodeps ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/kmod-rt2860-2.6.26.3-14.fc8-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.x86_64.rpm ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8.noarch.rpm

Don't worry. The kmod-rt2860 package was just an empty common package which actually does not do anything other than sorting the dependencies.

After you're done testing you can uninstall the RPM's with

rpm -e kmod-rt2860-2.6.26.3-14.fc8 rt2860-1.8.0.0-0.fc8

I will try to find a better solution for other people.

Sorry again,
Orcan

[bgsmith]

Orcan -

Ok. Thanks for the information and update. The rpms install just fine. I was worried that I was missing something with only 2 rpms and not 3.

I will let you know how it goes. I am trying to get an FC 8 workstation to work in a new location that only has wireless so I picked up an Edimax card that uses this rt2860 chip.

Brad

[ogetbilo]

OK great. As far as I can tell these drivers will work only with NetworkManager. I am still improving the RPM but some feedback would be really helpful.

Thanks a lot!

[nicubunu]

Trying to build it on latest Rawhide (2.6.27-0.392.rc8.git7.fc10.i686) I get "error: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.PxEtLe *%prep)"

note: I see rpmfusion devel stuck at 352, otherwise I would try the binary from there.