RT5370 STA USB wireless adapter driver installation

[TubaDaddy8]

I am also trying to install a wireless driver, but mine is for the Ralink 5370 USB wireless adapter. Do you have some patches for that driver, and could you show me how to install the driver? Thanks!

Here are the results for terminal commands. I only included the device in question:

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 148f:5370 Ralink Technology, Corp.

uname -r
2.6.38-8-generic

[chili555]

While I pour a cool one, please open Applications > Synaptic, get an ethernet connection and install build-essential and linux-headers-generic. I'll be right back.

[TubaDaddy8]

My Synaptic Package Manager is under System > Administration, if that makes any difference, and I already have them installed.

[chili555]

People are running Unity, Guh-nome. kubuntu, lxde and idontknowwhatabuntu. I sometimes accidentally get it right!

Go here: http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2 Download this to your desktop: RT8070/RT3070/RT3370/RT5370/RT5372USB Right-click it and select Extract Here. Rename the file that's extracted to RT5370. Right-click it and select Extract Here.

RANT: The automagic tools that extract files in Ubuntu work great until they don't and ole Chili has to tapdance. It is far easier than it once was and less easy than I hope it will someday be. END RANT.

Open the resulting folder and go to os > linux and use any text editor to edit config.mk. Please set 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y'. Proofread carefully, save and close the text editor.

Now, a geek's dream; open a terminal and do:

cd Desktop/2011

Press Tab and the remainder will fill in. Press Enter. Now do:

sudo su
make
make install
modprobe rt5370sta
exit

Is your wireless working?

If there are any errors, stop and ask; warnings are usually OK.

[TubaDaddy8]

Ok, it worked fine until I got to the modprobe rt5370sta. It says FATAL: Error inserting rt5370sta (/lib/modules/2.6.38-8-generic/kernal/drivers/net/wireless/rt5370sta.ko): Unkown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

[chili555]

(see dmesg)

Let's follow its advice and see dmesg. Please run and post:

sudo modprobe rt5370sta
dmesg | grep rt53

Thanks.

[TubaDaddy8]

It says "module license 'unspecified' taints kernel." And then a bunch of unknown symbol errors.

[chili555]

The 'license taints kernel' is trivial (and fixable) but wouldn't stop the driver from working. The unknown symbol errors are what we need to fix, however. Can you run:

sudo su
make clean
make

Then copy all the text from the terminal and paste into a text document and copy that to a USB key or similar so we can see and, hopefully, fix them?

[elrock]

I had the same error message ("unknown symbol") when trying to load this module, and I was able to get rid of it by following these instructions--

Build RT3070 kernel module

--particularly the comment by Matt Williams at the bottom. Basically you have to edit a couple of files and replace all instances of usb_buffer_free and usb_buffer_alloc with usb_free_coherent and usb_alloc_coherent. Then the module should load without any error messages. (I recently upgraded to Natty, so I have the same linux kernel as you.)

As an aside, I think it is absolutely ridiculous that users have to make these kinds of edits before a module will load properly. Most users would have no clue what to do. [/rant]

[chili555]

As an aside, I think it is absolutely ridiculous that users have to make these kinds of edits before a module will load properly. Most users would have no clue what to do.

Ahhh, the joy of source code! It is written to try to work with kernels from 2.6.wayback to 2.6.4xx. It is written to try to work with Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Suse, etc., etc. It works pretty well in most cases and not at all in a few cases. The developers put drivers in the mainline distribution as fast as they can and yet new chipsets come out daily. Typically, they come out with NO Linux support. When a Linux driver is eventually released, we module monkeys have to fiddle with it a bit to get it to work. It beats the answer you get on other forums and IRC: "Take it back and get a supported device."

I wish there was a better answer.

As an aside, I walked into Big Box Store a few days ago and saw a Netgear wireless USB device on the shelf. I read the model number and immediately, the user on this forum who is struggling to get it to work came to my mind. I must get away once in a while!!