Re: ralink wifi card

[Chris Lale <chrislale@untrammelled.co.uk>]

Harold R. Grove wrote:
> i'm having trouble getting my rt61 based card working under debian etch.  
> lspci shows i've got the right card:
> 
> 00:0f.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
> 
> the steps i've taken so far are
> 
> 1.grab the driver from ralink's website, and untar it.
> 2.cd to the 'Module' directory and copy Makefile.6 to Makefile
> 3.install the kernel headers, make, gcc, tofrodos, wireless-tools
> 4.make the module
> 5.copy all of the binary firmware files and configuration file 'rt61sta.dat' 
> to '/etc/Wireless/RT61STA'
> 6.convert the 'rt61sta.dat' file to unix format
> 7.copy 'rt61.ko' to '/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless'
> 8.run 'depmod'
> 9.run 'modprobe rt61' (no errors)
> 
> the driver says it finds a card, and the ra0 interface shows up, 
> but 'iwconfig' says that it has no wireless extensions.  
> running 'ifconfig -a' says that this card has no mac address as well.
> 
> is the firmware for this card not getting loaded?

I cannot answer your question directly, but here are a couple of thoughts. Have
you tried the serialmonkey rt2x00 driver? [1] It's also easily available in Etch
using module-assistant [2].

Serialmonkey suggest getting the latest firmware [3]. You could also try their
configuration advice:

After loading the modules the device should be configured for proper behaviour.
Before bringing the client interface up, the working mode should be set:

	$ iwconfig wlan0 mode managed

Configuration parts like essid and channel can be set before or after the client
interface has been brought up. It is usually a good idea to set the essid:

	$ iwconfig wlan0 essid myessid

In some situations the device also requires the channel to be manually set:

	$ iwconfig wlan0 channel mychannel

To add WEP encryption

	$ iwconfig wlan0 enc AABBCCDDEE

To bring the client interface up:

	$ ifconfig wlan0 up

After the client interface has been brought up, scanning can be performed to
check if the desired AP is being detected.

	$ iwlist wlan0 scan

To start an authentication/association attempt, the AP address should be set:

	$ iwconfig wlan0 ap mybssid


[1] http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Rt2x00_README
[2]
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_wireless_network_card_using_drivers_from_Debian_packages
[3] http://www.ralinktech.com/

Hope that's helpful,

-- 
Chris.