WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
Greetings all. :-)
This is my very first post in these forums. I installed Ubuntu 11.10 about a week ago, and I have to say that I am utterly in love with Linux. I learn and adapt very quickly, and having reached my breaking point of tolerance with Windows (in any version), I finally took the plunge into the Linux world. I've spent every free moment since install exploring and familiarizing myself with this amazing OS. I can say with absolute definitiveness now that I will NEVER go back to Winblows.
Having said that, there is one piece of hardware that Ubuntu did not detect, and presently remains useless : My NetGear N900 Dual Band Wireless Adapter. I've been scourering forums and websites looking for a means of getting this piece of hardware working with 11.10, to no avail. I've tried fake installing the drivers via Wine (actually I even downloaded the source code for Wine 1.3 and modified it for better USB detection, complied it, then installed it, without success), and even installing on another computer, then copying the files, then using Windows Wireless Drivers (Ndiswrapper) to find the INF file to make use of the drivers, without success. No matter what I do, this adapter is not able to be utilized.
The adapter, even though it cannot be used, is indeed being detected by Ubuntu, as the following info verifies:
lsusb:
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0846:9012 NetGear, Inc.
It is a Ralink-based chipset.
If anyone happens to know if there is any possible way of getting this adapter to function under Ubuntu 11.10, I'd be ridiculously grateful if they could point me in the right direction. If there is not yet support for this adapter, is there a way to request support somewhere?
Thanks much for any suggestions or advice.
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
Hi,
AFAIK there is no Linux driver there for this device. See here:
http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Netgear_WNDA4100
Two possibilities:
- Ask Ralink, which of there drivers may work, and compile it by hand (we will help you ;-) )
- Try the windows driver with ndiswrapper: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...er/Ndiswrapper
Any driver disk? Something on it looking like "Linux"?
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
Quote:
Originally Posted by
praseodym
Thanks for the reply. I did already try Ndiswrapper with the Windows drivers, without success. So, if I were to go about compiling my own drivers, how might I begin this task? It's interesting...NetGear has no Linux support, yet Ralink does have a tar.bz2 file for Linux to compile. I will certainly do my own homework on how to compile these drivers, but any assistance would be immensely appreciated.
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
In 11.10 you need to copy this file:
Code:
sudo cp /etc/modules.conf /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
Check:
Code:
ndiswrapper -l
dmesg | grep ndis
iwconfig
lsmod
1 Attachment(s)
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
Quote:
Originally Posted by
praseodym
In 11.10 you need to copy this file:
Code:
sudo cp /etc/modules.conf /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
Check:
Code:
ndiswrapper -l
dmesg | grep ndis
iwconfig
lsmod
I've pretty much set it into my head at the moment to build Linux native drivers from source provided by Ralink, but I'm feeling a bit in over my head at the moment, as I need to set variables that I don't know enough about yet to set properly. I've attached the readme file for compiling the source. I've been trying to follow instructions for compiling drivers for another USB adapter that also uses a Ralink chipset, but when in the driver source directory I'm unable to ./configure or sudo make. I'm determined to do this...lol.
1 Attachment(s)
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
If this helps at all (to see the structure and content of the driver root directory), here is the tarball from Ralink's site for this chipset.
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
OK, I've been reading hordes of posts and experimenting. I ran checkinstall in the terminal from the driver root directory, and I got further than I had in previous attempts, but had an error at the end. Here is the output:
Code:
Installing with make install...
========================= Installation results ===========================
make -C /home/tydynrain/Desktop/Ralink/Drivers/os/linux -f Makefile.6 install
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/tydynrain/Desktop/Ralink/Drivers/os/linux'
rm -rf /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA
mkdir /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA
cp /home/tydynrain/Desktop/Ralink/Drivers/RT2870STA.dat /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA/.
install -d /lib/modules/3.0.0-16-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
install -m 644 -c rt2870sta.ko /lib/modules/3.0.0-16-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
install: cannot stat `rt2870sta.ko': No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/tydynrain/Desktop/Ralink/Drivers/os/linux'
make: *** [install] Error 2
**** Installation failed. Aborting package creation.
So the rt2870sta.ko module was not found, or could not be created, and hence not installed properly. Any ideas?
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
I also have this device and I would love for it to work. Any progress?
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
I have a plan! It is untested because I don't have the same device. I also have no idea if it will work at N speeds or even work at all. If you'd like to proceed, please verify that you have the same device:If so, hook up the ethernet temporarily and get the file RT5572USB from here: http://www.ralinktech.com/en/04_supp...ort.php?sn=501
We also need to install the compiling tools:
Code:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential
Of course, you could buy any number of inexpensive well-supported devices as well.
Re: WNDA 4100 (NetGear N900) Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter
I have this device as well and I've trying to compile the same driver but to no avail. Modprobe -l shows that the driver is installed, but that hasn't helped me.
I would love to get this working, has anyone had any luck with this?
I know there are other supported devices out there, but I haven't found any other dual band 450mps usb adapters that work either.
