A little while back I bought a NetGear WNDA4100 N900 usb adapter for one of my machines. When I plugged it in, it just sat there. YaST2 didn’t see it and I had NO idea where to start… so I googled everything in sight and found a driver on the MediaTek website. I got that driver working but the system would panic every time. The problem was that the driver was not 64 bit friendly and pointers were wrong. I found this: https://github.com/ashaffer/rt3573sta and when I read about the 64 bit addressing problem, I followed the instructions and the rest is history. Special thanks to “ashaffer” for developing the patches and to Larry (iwfinger) and Deano_Ferrari, who were most patient and helpful during the process. I am an old (emphasis on “OLD”) IBM 360/370 assembler programmer that converted to Unix and “C” at AT&T and Linux at home in the 1980’s. Oh, well.
uname -r gets 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
Here is the blueprint that I used to get this device to work:
I edited the file “/etc/sysconfig/network/config” and added “|ra[0-9]” to LINKLOCAL_INTERFACES:
edit LINKLOCAL_INTERFACES=“eth*[0-9]|tr*[0-9]|wlan[0-9]|ath[0-9]|ra[0-9]” (add “|ra[0-9])
install ralink-firmware from RPM Search ralink-firmware for openSuSE 12.3
Went to: https://github.com/ashaffer/rt3573sta and clicked on “Download ZIP”
unzip downloaded file.
cd to the created directory
tweaked RT2870STA.dat to reflect correct access essid
make clean
make
make install
modprobe rt3573sta
create /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ra0 as follows:
BOOTPROTO=‘dhcp’
BROADCAST=’’
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=’’
IPADDR=’’
MTU=’’
NAME=‘NetGear WNDA4100 N900’ <-name for dongle
NETMASK=’’
NETWORK=’’
REMOTE_IPADDR=’’
STARTMODE=‘auto’
USERCONTROL=‘no’
WIRELESS_AP=’’
WIRELESS_AP_SCANMODE=‘1’
WIRELESS_AUTH_MODE=‘no-encryption’
WIRELESS_BITRATE=‘auto’
WIRELESS_CA_CERT=’’
WIRELESS_CHANNEL=’’
WIRELESS_CLIENT_CERT=’’
WIRELESS_CLIENT_KEY=’’
WIRELESS_CLIENT_KEY_PASSWORD=’’
WIRELESS_DEFAULT_KEY=‘0’
WIRELESS_EAP_AUTH=’’
WIRELESS_EAP_MODE=’’
WIRELESS_ESSID=‘blivit’ <— ESSID
WIRELESS_FREQUENCY=’’
WIRELESS_KEY=’’
WIRELESS_KEY_0=’’
WIRELESS_KEY_1=’’
WIRELESS_KEY_2=’’
WIRELESS_KEY_3=’’
WIRELESS_KEY_LENGTH=‘128’
WIRELESS_MODE=‘Managed’
WIRELESS_NICK=’’
WIRELESS_NWID=’’
WIRELESS_PEAP_VERSION=’’
WIRELESS_POWER=‘no’
WIRELESS_WPA_ANONID=’’
WIRELESS_WPA_IDENTITY=’’
WIRELESS_WPA_PASSWORD=’’
WIRELESS_WPA_PSK=’’
verify that the device interface is in YAST
plug in dongle (NetGear WNDA4100 N900) – lights on
Rejoicing in the streets…
Now that YaST2->Network Devices ->Network Settings can see the device as “ra0” I can set encryption and pick my encrypted network.
I hope this helps someone…