Howto: Ralink rt2870 (USB) under Intrepid with Networkmanager

[RaZoR1394]

Originally Posted by aextance OK, I found the build file - turns out the make file has the following line in it: /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build which points the make process to /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-386/build on my system, when the build symbolic link is actually at /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/build. So having done everything else you mention - except install the patch as I'm not in Intrepid - I think I'm still struggling. When do a sudo modprobe I get the following worrying message: FATAL: Error inserting rt2870sta (/lib/modules/2.6.24-19-386/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2870sta.ko): Invalid module format When I do an lsusb it definitely comes back saying that it's an RT2870 device, so I don't get it. Unless it's because I'm following this procedure for Intrepid, but I'm not using the patch, so it should go OK, shouldn't it ? I'm gonna recheck the other threads on using the RT2870 driver in case I've missed something...

There is a guide for Hardy and 2.6.24 which involves a special patch made for that kernel. Search for rt2870 on this forum and you'll find it. This guide was tested on Intrepid and not on Hardy.

[Jackie999]

While this did work for me for a few days (although wouldn't stay connected for more than 10~15 minutes) now, when I try ifconfig ra0 up I'm getting the following error. I've tried rebuilding and no change.

[ 1212.583058] <-- RTMPAllocAdapterBlock, Status=0
[ 1212.596485] usbcore: registered new interface driver rt2870
[ 1242.807814] ifconfig: page allocation failure. order:6, mode:0x0
[ 1242.807863] Pid: 7867, comm: ifconfig Tainted: P          2.6.27-4-generic #1
[ 1242.807876]  [<c03924c6>] ? printk+0x1d/0x1f
[ 1242.807919]  [<c018baf7>] __alloc_pages_internal+0x387/0x490
[ 1242.807949]  [<c01081ba>] dma_alloc_pages+0x2a/0x30
[ 1242.807983]  [<c010828e>] dma_alloc_coherent+0xce/0x280
[ 1242.808216]  [<cf8c47a9>] hcd_buffer_alloc+0x49/0x90 [usbcore]
[ 1242.808416]  [<cf8b843a>] usb_buffer_alloc+0x2a/0x30 [usbcore]
[ 1242.808446]  [<cfdb6fa7>] NICInitTransmit+0xc7/0x9c0 [rt2870sta]
[ 1242.808666]  [<cfdb7966>] RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory+0xc6/0x150 [rt2870sta]
[ 1242.808695]  [<c010529f>] ? mcount_call+0x5/0x16
[ 1242.808725]  [<cfda56b0>] rt28xx_open+0xd0/0x590 [rt2870sta]
[ 1242.808765]  [<c030adfa>] dev_open+0xaa/0xe0
[ 1242.808799]  [<c0394926>] ? _spin_unlock_bh+0x16/0x20
[ 1242.808825]  [<c030a21f>] ? dev_set_rx_mode+0x2f/0x40
[ 1242.808834]  [<c030a4a9>] dev_change_flags+0x149/0x1d0
[ 1242.808843]  [<c03568b2>] devinet_ioctl+0x4f2/0x550
[ 1242.808862]  [<c030aaad>] ? dev_ioctl+0x27d/0x520
[ 1242.808870]  [<c01be052>] ? path_walk+0xa2/0xb0
[ 1242.808892]  [<c035755a>] inet_ioctl+0x9a/0xc0
[ 1242.808901]  [<c02fb1b8>] sock_ioctl+0x68/0x250
[ 1242.808924]  [<c01cad60>] ? alloc_fd+0xe0/0x100
[ 1242.808944]  [<c02fb150>] ? sock_ioctl+0x0/0x250
[ 1242.808952]  [<c01c048d>] vfs_ioctl+0x2d/0x90
[ 1242.808963]  [<c01c0676>] do_vfs_ioctl+0x66/0x1f0
[ 1242.808971]  [<c01c086b>] sys_ioctl+0x6b/0x70
[ 1242.808978]  [<c0103f6b>] sysenter_do_call+0x12/0x2f
[ 1242.808986]  [<c0390000>] ? native_cpu_up+0x56/0x180
[ 1242.808996]  =======================
[ 1242.809001] Mem-Info:
[ 1242.809008] DMA per-cpu:
[ 1242.809015] CPU    0: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[ 1242.809020] Normal per-cpu:
[ 1242.809024] CPU    0: hi:   90, btch:  15 usd:  87
[ 1242.809034] Active:31258 inactive:19942 dirty:9 writeback:0 unstable:0
[ 1242.809037]  free:1041 slab:3640 mapped:6194 pagetables:501 bounce:0
[ 1242.809047] DMA free:1168kB min:128kB low:160kB high:192kB active:4352kB inactive:5088kB present:15852kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
[ 1242.809054] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 221 221 221
[ 1242.809066] Normal free:2996kB min:1840kB low:2300kB high:2760kB active:120680kB inactive:74680kB present:227296kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
[ 1242.809073] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0
[ 1242.809080] DMA: 34*4kB 1*8kB 2*16kB 1*32kB 1*64kB 1*128kB 1*256kB 1*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 1168kB
[ 1242.809101] Normal: 71*4kB 189*8kB 35*16kB 8*32kB 2*64kB 0*128kB 1*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 2996kB
[ 1242.809120] 30994 total pagecache pages
[ 1242.809125] 1678 pages in swap cache
[ 1242.809131] Swap cache stats: add 20127, delete 18449, find 8578/8959
[ 1242.809136] Free swap  = 634816kB
[ 1242.809139] Total swap = 698788kB
[ 1242.827331] 61424 pages RAM
[ 1242.827343] 0 pages HighMem
[ 1242.827346] 1867 pages reserved
[ 1242.827349] 45957 pages shared
[ 1242.827353] 49075 pages non-shared
[ 1242.827365] <-- ERROR in Alloc TX TxContext[3] HTTX_BUFFER !! 
[ 1242.934347] <-- RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory, Status=3
[ 1242.934403] ERROR!!! RTMPAllocDMAMemory failed, Status[=0x00000003]
[ 1242.934418] !!! RT2870 Initialized fail !!!

[Jackie999]

I have it working again using the newest driver (version 1.4.0.0) from ralinktech:

http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2

Since my device isn't in the /include/rt2870.h - I added it

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 050d:815c Belkin Components 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Then in /os/linux/ I changed the two lines (the n to y):

# Support Wpa_Supplicant
HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y

# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Maganger
HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y

On boot I had to

sudo modprobe rt2870sta
sudo ifconfig ra0 up

It immediately asked for my wireless password ..then connected

iwconfig
ra0       RT2870 Wireless  ESSID:"Your Mom on four"  Nickname:"RT2870STA"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:18:F8:6C:6C:6D   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level:-50 dBm  Noise level:-81 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I'm not sure if this now supports the 802.11n....
Thanks again to everyone who helped me getting it going

[RaZoR1394]

Glad to hear that. Sorry I couldn't help lately cause I'm not really an expert on this.

I've put the guide on pbwiki so changes can be observed:

http://ubunturt2870.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

I had thoughts about putting it on wiki.ubuntu.com but my guess is that It's a lot stricter and I couldn't figure out how to post.

[RaZoR1394]

I've been trying this new driver for some hours and wireless reception information seems to be more accurate.

[Jackie999]

Yes...I thought the connection was more stable and of a better quality.
Do you know..it says in the release doc

16. Support Linux Kernel 2.6.27

Would that mean it would work also for Hardy users that haven't stepped up to Intrepid yet?
I'm not sure about backwards compatiblity here....

[RaZoR1394]

All I can gather from that line is that this driver should work better with 2.6.27.

This post indicates that the latest driver should work without any modifications with Hardy on 2.6.24.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...5&postcount=44

[funkz]

Originally Posted by Jackie999 I have it working again using the newest driver (version 1.4.0.0) from ralinktech: http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2 Since my device isn't in the /include/rt2870.h - I added it lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 050d:815c Belkin Components Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Then in /os/linux/ I changed the two lines (the n to y): # Support Wpa_Supplicant HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y # Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Maganger HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y On boot I had to sudo modprobe rt2870sta sudo ifconfig ra0 up It immediately asked for my wireless password ..then connected iwconfig ra0 RT2870 Wireless ESSID:"Your Mom on four" Nickname:"RT2870STA" Mode:Managed Frequency=2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:18:F8:6C:6C:6D Bit Rate=54 Mb/s RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Link Quality=100/100 Signal level:-50 dBm Noise level:-81 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 I'm not sure if this now supports the 802.11n.... Thanks again to everyone who helped me getting it going

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This worked a treat. Have been trying to get this going via the same driver you said but version 1.3, which was being all dodgy (not connecting, being wierd). Then I was trying a lot with ndiswrapper and it wouldn't load the drivers. Worked instantly with this driver. Now just need to add it to my /etc/modules...

I'm on Xubuntu 8.04 on amd64 with a Belking N Wireless USB F5D8053AU (aka F5D8053 in non-Australia).

Now to begin updating packages and using this freshly installed system....

Thanks again.

[Jackie999]

Not sure if this is just my problem..or a problem with one of the intrepid updates I've taken.
Now when I plug in the usb device I'm getting this in dmesg:

[  504.232133] usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[  504.481480] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  505.387380] ndiswrapper version 1.53 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
[  505.414174] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

Did it just load ndiswrapper ? Far as I know, I'd completely uninstalled that since it causes my lappy to freeze.

[RaZoR1394]

The module is installed with the modules package during each kernel update. You've only removed the userspace part. Just blacklist ndiswrapper.