openSUSE 11.0 & RT2500pci wireless problems

Hi All

I’m new to opensuse, but a long time ubuntu user. Earlier this morning I installed 11.0 but my wireless card isn’t recognised.
This isn’t a shock since I had the same issues with ubuntu.
I had to head off to work so I’ve not had chance to try anything yet, but I was wondering if the following commands would work. These are the commands I used to use to get wireless working with ubuntu.

cd ~
mkdir ~/rt2500
cd ~/rt2500
wget http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt2500-cvs-daily.tar.gz
tar -zxvf rt2500-cvs-daily.tar.gz
cd rt2500-cvs*/Module
make
sudo modprobe -r rt2500pci
echo ‘blacklist rt2500pci’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
sudo make install
echo ‘rt2500’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

I then had to modify the contents of /etc/network/interfaces with:

This file describes the network interfaces available on your system

and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

The loopback network interface

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

This is a list of hotpluggable network interfaces.

They will be activated automatically by the hotplug subsystem.

mapping hotplug
script grep
map eth0
auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid “mynetwork”
pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
pre-up iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=“mypassword”
pre-up ifconfig ra0 up


Does the info above contain any commands that opensuse would reject, or should that restore wireless?

Any advice would be useful since I’ll have no internet to rely on when I get home.

rt2500 chipsets should be supported by the rt2x00 serialmonkey driver, which is part of the kernel since 2.6.23/2.6.24 (?). All you’ll need to do is to extract the firmware to /lib/firmware and reload the kernel module or simply reboot. You can grab the firmware here Ralink Technology: Linux

best of luck!

Thanks for the quick response, I’ll give that a try tonight. :slight_smile:

Here"s a guide that should work for you: 10.3 & Rt2500 Wireless Howto - openSUSE Forums

process is very similar; prep the kernel for module building; similar code.

My problems with the rt2500pci driver are rate “1M” & signal strength “72/100”;
with rt2500 (cvs), I get rate “54M” & signal strength “91/100” (it’s an old legacy builtin).

Have fun:)

I know what you mean about the 1M rate. I had that with the ubuntu.

I had to use the serialmonkey drivers with Rutilt instead of knetworkmanager.

Thanks for the link, I’ll take a look at that too.

I also had a lot of trouble getting my rt2500pci up and running. It was recognized correctly and the module was loaded but still couldn’t establish a connection. What helped me out was adding the following kernel parameters:

pci=nomsi pci=noacpi

Just give it a try, perhaps this also works for you.

Grettings,
Rob

Wow. I can’t believe how badly support for rt2500-based wireless cards regressed between 10.3 and 11. In 10.3, everything “just worked” with the default drivers plus NetworkManager providing an excellent connection. In 11, my connection makes 56K dialup look speedy and reliable… I’ll try serialmonkey drivers + rutilt, but I only hope my connection can “live” long enough to get the tarballs.

Hello,

My little experience with this problem: I have a RT61 chipset based WiFi card.

The rt2x00 driver included in the default openSUSE 11.0 kernel is outdated (and did not work at all for me) so you have to install a newer one.

The best option is to add these repositories (from the build service):
Index of /repositories/home:/schmolle1980/openSUSE_11.0
Index of /repositories/home:/schmolle1980/openSUSE_11.0_Update

and install the package “compat-wireless-kmp-default…]”

This worked perfectly for me without having to compile anything from serialmonkey.

This is very similar to the “backport-modules” package for Ubuntu.

HTH

The rt2x00 driver included in the default openSUSE 11.0 kernel is outdated (and did not work at all for me) so you have to install a newer one.

That sounds a bit strange to me as I have a RT61 based card as well and it’s working great with the stock drivers (rt2x00). You simply need to copy the firmware to /lib/firmware and restart the wireless interface.

That sounds a bit strange to me as I have a RT61 based card as well and it’s working great with the stock drivers (rt2x00). You simply need to copy the firmware to /lib/firmware and restart the wireless interface.

OK, you may be right. I think I’ve downloaded ralink-firmware package from schmolle1980 with the compat-wireless one.

But the firmware wasn’t in the LiveCD, so no WiFi out of the box :frowning: (which is the case with Ubuntu LiveCD)

Firmware issues aren’t exactly applicable to rt2500-based cards given that they have traditional “hard” firmware that allows them to work without requiring boot-time uploads of binary blobs. Why Ralink moved to “soft” (loaded in from the HD at boot time) firmware rather than old-school EPROM firmware, I’ll never know, but it was a lousy choice.

With that said, the OP needs a new solution, given that the one offered doesn’t even apply.

A real newbie question. I’m having the same problem with my RT61. I’ve downloaded the link for the firmware, but I guess I’m not sure exactly what the firmware is. Do I copy both the extracted Modules and WPA Supplicant directories from the file off the RALink page? Or do I need to run the entire Module configuration?

Thanks!