Wireless not working on RaLink RT3090 with Ubuntu 10.04

[nlj]

I am running Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit) on a SONY VAIO M (Model VPCM111AX/W (Atom N450)) which appears to have a RaLink RT3090 wireless card. So far everything seems to work except the WLAN.

The problem is that the wireless does not appear to be switched on. This computer doesn't have a key combination to toggle the wireless. Instead it has a physical switch on the front. The switch is in the "on" position, and the green LED is on. (It isn't a toggle switch with a spring like on an Aspire One, rather it has an "on" position and an "off" position and a green LED turns on when it is on, so you'd think it would be pretty obvious if it were off.)

At the bottom of this post I have appended diagnostic messages from a variety of utilities that seemed more or less relevant.

Can anyone tell me the status of the RaLink RT3090 with Ubuntu 10.04? I have looked through various posts here about getting this card working with earlier versions of the OS, where complicated procedures with mixed and apparently intermittent results are described. Do these measures also need to be followed with 10.04?

How can I tell if an old solution (say from some of the posts here from last autumn) is still valid for 10.04? (I don't really want to superstitiously keep trying things in the hopes that something might work. I'd prefer to diagnose what the real problem is and address that specifically. Although I'm not sure how much time it would be worth spending on it. Possibly better to take the computer back to the store and get a different one?)

Thank you in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction towards getting this working.

A few notes/clarifications:

Note 1: I have not installed Ubuntu to my hard drive yet because I want to be sure it'll work first. I'm running from a bootable USB flashdrive set up from the ISO by Unetbootin (as described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick). Is there any reason to expect that wireless might work if the OS is booted from a HDD if it doesn't work when booted from USB?

Note 2: I also briefly tried running Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition from the USB and that has the same problem with the wireless.

Note 3: Wired Ethernet works fine.

Note 4: Is it odd that the device is wlan0 rather than ra0? And is it odd that wlan0 seems to be associated with "RT2860 Wireless” and "RT2860STA" rather than with names with "RT3090" in them?

Note 5: The wireless works fine in Windows 7 and I make sure it is turned on when I shut down the system prior to booting from the USB.

Note 6: (Possibly irrelevant) The SONY VAIO update utility had me update the Windows driver for the RT3090. The reason given was that the factory installed driver causes problems with audio playback during boot.

===

nm-tool gives:

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected

- Device: wlan0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
Type: 802.11 WiFi
Driver: rt3090
State: unavailable
Default: no
HW Address: 00:00:00:00:00:00

Capabilities:

Wireless Properties
WEP Encryption: yes
WPA Encryption: yes
WPA2 Encryption: yes

Wireless Access Points


- Device: eth0 [Auto eth0] ----------------------------------------------------
Type: Wired
Driver: jme
State: connected
Default: yes

. . . plus more details on eth0.

===

lspci -v reports:

01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
Subsystem: RaLink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16.
Memory at fe900000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: rt3090
Kernel modules: rt3090sta

===

ifconfig gives:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:be:ba:21:69
inet addr:192.168.10.107 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::224:beff:feba:2169/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:27 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:29 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3163 (3.1 KB) TX bytes:4506 (4.5 KB)
Interrupt:27

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3312 (3.3 KB) TX bytes:3312 (3.3 KB)

===

iwconfig reports:

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 RT2860 Wireless ESSID:"" Nickname:"RT2860STA"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level:0 dBm Noise level:-87 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

===

"sudo lshw -C network" gives:

*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
product: RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
vendor: RaLink
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt3090 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=RT2860 Wireless
resources: irq:16 memory:fe900000-fe90ffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: JMC260 PCI Express Fast Ethernet Controller
vendor: JMicron Technology Corp.
physical id: 0.5
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.5
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:24:be:ba:21:69
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msix msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd
autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=jme driverversion=1.0.5 duplex=full ip=192.168.10.107
latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
resources: irq:27 memory:fe800000-fe803fff ioport:e100(size=128) ioport:e000(size=256)

===

"ifconfig wlan0 up" gives:
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Permission denied

"sudo ifconfig wlan0 up" gives:
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted

[chili555]

How can I tell if an old solution (say from some of the posts here from last autumn) is still valid for 10.04?

What is it? We'll give you our opinion.

Is it odd that the device is wlan0 rather than ra0? And is it odd that wlan0 seems to be associated with "RT2860 Wireless” and "RT2860STA" rather than with names with "RT3090" in them?

Nope. The various rtxxsta drivers are built by the same guy on, more or less, the same template. The native kernel versions all use wlanX rather than raX, as the compiled version uses. The RT2860 is just a placeholder until you connect with an actual access point.

You have a valid driver in place. Compiling another is not likely to change anything.

Several things come to mind. First, Network Manager is designed to not allow a wireless connection if wired is available. You have a wired connection now:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:be:ba:21:69
inet addr:192.168.10.107

Please detach the wire and run:

sudo lshw -C network

Is wireless still shown as disabled?

Next, we'd love to see the result of:

rfkill list all
rfkill unblock all
rfkill list all

Finally, I wonder if the special driver sony-laptop is doing it's job correctly. Is it loaded?

lsmod | grep sony

Does it help to unload it?

sudo rmmod -f sony-laptop

Now move the switch and see if the wireless comes to life.

[nlj]

Thank you chili555. I followed your steps (details below), but no wireless yet.

Sorry. I didn't know that Network Manager disallows wireless if a wire is connected. I had plugged in the wired connection when I discovered that the wireless didn't work, but I see now that I should have run the reports first. However, even with no ethernet cable plugged in and after a restart, "sudo lshw -C network" still shows the Wireless interface as "DISABLED".

I tried "rfkill list all", "rfkill unblock all", "rfkill list all" but there was no output; the first one had nothing to list and I suppose the second one had nothing to unblock (or couldn't unblock it but reported no error) and for the third one there was still nothing to list. So all three commands just returned me to the command prompt.

"lsmod | grep sony" gave: "sony_laptop 33756 0". "sudo rmmod -f sony-laptop" produced no output, but repeating "lsmod | grep sony" now listed nothing so I guess the discrepancy between the underscore and the hyphen don't matter? (In any case, I ran through all these procedures several times (restarting in between) and the time I tried "sudo rmmod -f sony_laptop" the results were the same.)

The "sudo rmmod -f sony-laptop" seemed to have no effect on the wireless (or anything else that I noticed), and turning the wireless off and on with the physical switch and toggling "Enable Networking" and "Enable Wireless" in the Network Manager aplet in various orders didn't bring up the wireless (as far as I could tell from the status listed in Network Manager.

So where to I go from here. Are there more steps I can take to pinpoint the problem? Failing that, am I best to go with the ndis wrapper route, or rebuild the kernel with the newest RaLink driver? (The revision history on the lastest driver just says the change was to fix something on Apples, so possibly not useful. However, am I correct that the driver Ubuntu is currently using is not a Linux driver supplied by RaLink but is one written by the Linux team?)

[orangenick]

try this workaround, it worked for me (MSI L2300 - RT3090 on ubuntu 10.04):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/541620

quote:

as root (or sudo before each line):
mkdir -p /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/
touch /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat
service network-manager restart

HTH...

[chili555]

May I see:

dmesg | grep -i RT3
dmesg | grep -i RT2

Thanks.

[nlj]

Thank you orangenick and chili555. That sorts out the problem. I now have wireless working on the RT3090 in my SONY VAIO M with Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit).

The report from chili555's commands was as follows:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep -i RT3
[ 38.443096] rt3090sta: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
[ 38.545357] rt3090 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 38.545410] rt3090 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep -i RT2
[ 39.363324] RtmpOSFileOpen(): Error 2 opening /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat
[ 39.363335] Open file "/etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat" failed!
[ 39.368619] !!! rt28xx Initialized fail !!!
[ 39.708075] RtmpOSFileOpen(): Error 2 opening /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat
[ 39.708086] Open file "/etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat" failed!
[ 39.713495] !!! rt28xx Initialized fail !!!

So I checked for the file in question and as expected, it did not exist:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA
ls: cannot access /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA: No such file or directory
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls /etc/Wireless
ls: cannot access /etc/Wireless: No such file or directory

So I followed orangenick's procedure from Ubuntu >“linux” package > Bugs > Bug #541620 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/541620), and created an empty file of the right name and in the right location and after restarting the Network Manager, there was my wireless working just fine. For future reference the steps that did the job were:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/
sudo touch /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat
sudo service network-manager restart

Note that because I was booting from USB and the filesystem reverted to it's pristine state every time I rebooted, the fix was not persistent over a reboot and I had to enter those three commands each time I started.

But I have now installed onto my hard drive and the fix is permanent.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

[chili555]

Good job. Glad it's working.

However, am I correct that the driver Ubuntu is currently using is not a Linux driver supplied by RaLink but is one written by the Linux team?)

In fact, the Ralink folks are a part of the Linux team and they do write the driver you are using:

$ modinfo rt2870sta
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.32-22-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2870/rt2870sta.ko
alias:          rt3070sta
version:        2.0.1.0
license:        GPL
description:    RTxx70 Wireless LAN Linux Driver
author:         Paul Lin <paul_lin@ralinktech.com>

[gargok]

To me on my Asus eeePC 1001ha, this worked

as root (or sudo before each line):
mkdir -p /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/
touch /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat
service network-manager restart

wireless is active and looks for wireless networks... BUT
I cannot connect to my own hidden network with WPA

What did I do wrong? What should I do?

[chili555]

Did you select 'Hidden Network' and fill in the details? Is your router set to WPA or WPA2 or the funny mixed WPA and WPA2 mode? Many here cannot connect in mixed mode. Please select WPA or WPA2 but not both.

[gargok]

Chilli555 thanks for your answer.
Yes, I selected 'Hidden Network' and filled in the details

Is your router set to WPA or WPA2 or the funny mixed WPA and WPA2 mode? Many here cannot connect in mixed mode.

Router is in WPA-PSK mode with TKIP WPA encription.

shall you help me without loosing security??