# anyone using a wireless card with a Ralink chipset?

## mikegpitt

New title to make more general: anyone using a wireless card with a Ralink chipset?

Thread formerly titled: anyone using a Ralink card on a ppc system?

After 4 months of wrestling with my Dlink DWL-122 usb stick, I think it's time to start shopping for a new usb wifi device.  I have a newish iBook G4, so my only wireless option would be some type of USB stick.

After some google searching I founf that Ralink seems to release linux drivers for their chipset, and also has one for USB sticks.  So some questions:

- Does anyone have any experience setting up a usb stick with the Ralink chipset?

- Is it simple to set up? (I'm tired of messing with wireless settings.)

- What is a good Ralink usb stick to buy?

(Also, for some reason MOL doesn't work on my system, or I would try the airport extreme under MOL.)Last edited by mikegpitt on Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:04 pm; edited 3 times in total

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## robino

Hi, I just started setting it up today and I have some things working. 

First of all, I used from http://wiki.lugparana.com.ar/index.php/DWL-122G_B as a guide to install the driver, which is a guide on how to use this driver which is ported: http://etudiants.insia.org/~jbobbio/ural-linux.

Then I get trough iwconfig etc. a connection with my open wireless network, but I do not get an IP-address. And I still haven't figured out how to use it in passive mode, if possible at all.

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## echo6

Not ralink,  but Planet do a usb wireless device with a Zydas 1211 chipset which also has Linux drivers available.   Thus far I've not been able to compile them  :Sad: 

Here are a few urls to help you in your search for USB devices,  if you find any others let me know.   I'm also interested in the various popular usb devices available and what chipsets they use.

http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.sabi.co.uk/Notes/linuxWiFi.html

http://linux_wless.passys.nl/latest_news.php

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/

http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net

http://sourceforge.net/projects/zd1211

http://jbnote.free.fr/prism54usb/index.html

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## mikegpitt

Thanks for the replies guys.

Just to add to the list of useful links, I came across this site which has a lsit of all the cards that work with Ralink 2500 drivers.

http://ralink.rapla.net/

Robino:I bought a DWL-G122 a while ago but ended up returning it because I coudlnt get the kernel to detect it.   BUT now there are drivers for it I am tempted to try it again... assuming I can find the rev. b1 in stores.  Do you happen to have that wiki link in engligh?  The link you left comes to a dead page on a wiki in spanish.

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## echo6

Don't hold your breath on many of these devices,  my experience has shown that Zydas and Ralink will either not compile or when they do they result in kernel errors when you try to use them.   People must be having success though as the bug reports show active use.   As for Prism54u devices Jean Babtiste-Note is still working on the drivers but the last time I looked the were not functional.

I should probably ask the moderators to shadow this thread to another more appropriate topic as its not specific to PPC.

I'm very keen to see support for these devices under Linux.

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## mikegpitt

echo 6:  You may be right.  I just d/l'ed the Ralink USB drivers and it doesn't build.  Also I think I will change the title.

Moderators: Can you maybe move this to a more appropriate place since other archs may have experience here.

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## echo6

I got the ralink drivers to build,  but loading the driver produces kernel error messages.   I can't get the Zydas drivers to build,  but have had them built on another machine where again I get kernel errors.   USB wireless device drivers are still pretty much in their infancy in Linux and there isn't much support from lead manufacturers of the chipsets  :Sad: 

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## mikegpitt

Were you able to get the USB ralink drivers to build, or just the pcmcia ones?  My make keeps running into errors.  BTW which kernel are you using?

robino:  Maybe you could shed some light into this, since you seem to have it partially working.

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## echo6

I forgot to put wireless LAN driver into the kernel under drivers-networking.   Once I had recompiled the kernel I was able to build both the ralink and zydas1211 drivers.

Ralink detects the device and brings up the interface,  I can make changes via iwconfig but it stays stuck at 1Mbit and will not ping my router.

Zydas detects the device but does not see it as a wireless device!!

 :Sad: 

I've yet to try and contact the authors,  I keep meaning to ping them an email.

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## mikegpitt

Ok so I'm on a wireless USB stick on my laptop right now.  :Smile: 

I realised that above robino used the ural-linux wireless drivers, instead of the vanilla Ralink ones.  I went to the store and picked up a DWL-G122 b1 USB stick.  Luckly they had some b1's.  You can tell which type it is by the serial barcode on the bottom of the box.

Anyways, the ural drivers compiles and installed flawlessly on my 2.6.12 kernel.

Here is what seems to work/not work:

- I can use 802.11g.

- The ssid seems to need to be broadcast right now, or it won't pick up the signal.  

- It works with hotplug and seem to automatically detect as eth1.

- Every time I stop the card I need to unplug it and plug back in before I can properly restart it.

The drivers are suippose to be buggy, but so far no big problems.  Although I've only had the wireless conenct for 5 mins, so I can report back if there are some major problems.  I'm quite happy right now though, actually having some native linux drivers work well with a USB stick.  Hopefully I can toss my old DWL-122 and linux-wlan-ng to the side forever.

I'm interested to hear if anyone else has used the ural drivers before and share any experiences.

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## mikegpitt

The link: http://wiki.lugparana.com.ar/index.php/DWL-122G_B

seems to still be down, but I ran into this google cache today.  I'm not sure how long it will be up, but here it is if anyone wants to refer to it.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:yDJSSch4ytAJ:wiki.lugparana.com.ar/index.php/DWL-122G_B1+ural-linux&hl=en&client=firefox

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## mikegpitt

To make things easier for others I created an ebuild for the ural-linux drivers.  You can read about it on this thread: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2708598.html#2708598

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## zeuss1414

Finaly you have made the DWL-G122 work ??

If YES, you said :  *Quote:*   

> You can tell which type it is by the serial barcode on the bottom of the box

 

But how can I know if it is a DWL-G122 just by looking at the barcode ??

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## mikegpitt

 *zeuss1414 wrote:*   

> Finaly you have made the DWL-G122 work ??
> 
> If YES, you said :  *Quote:*   You can tell which type it is by the serial barcode on the bottom of the box 
> 
> But how can I know if it is a DWL-G122 just by looking at the barcode ??

 Sure, like I said above it worked great.  I used the ural-linux drivers, and created an ebuild for them:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-378639-highlight-.html

Apparently there is a problem with these drivers and the 2.6.14 kernel, but you can read about it in the thread.

I don't have the box with me right now, but I rememebr that by looking at the barcode on the box there was some code on it that said b1 on it.  It will have this if it is the correct chipset, or else it will ahve the code for the chipset it is.  Another tell-tale sign is if the ural-linux drivers autoload when you plug the stick in the machine.

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## nlindblad

I have a RaLink RT2500 and it works like a dream with all disros I've used it with (including Gentoo). Open networks or WEP is easy to set up, the hard part is WPA/WPA-802.11x but that can be done with wpa_supplicant I think.

Using it right now at my school where we have wireless networks in all facilities.

Since I haven't tried other cards than this I can't really compare it with something, but at least I have a positive experience from using this card.

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## zeuss1414

 *Quote:*   

> I have a RaLink RT2500 and it works like a dream with all disros I've used it with (including Gentoo).

 

Ok but wich model  and wich manufacturer is your card ?

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## nlindblad

 *zeuss1414 wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   I have a RaLink RT2500 and it works like a dream with all disros I've used it with (including Gentoo). 
> 
> Ok but wich model  and wich manufacturer is your card ?

 

It's an intergrated OEM card in a FujitsuSiemens Amilo Pro V2010 notebook.

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## zeuss1414

Thanks for your answer but I'm looking for an WIFI USB KEY. 

Any other proposition ??

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## mikegpitt

 *zeuss1414 wrote:*   

> Thanks for your answer but I'm looking for an WIFI USB KEY. 
> 
> Any other proposition ??

 All known USB sticks using the  RaLink 2500 USB chipset are listed on the ural-linux thread:  https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-378639-highlight-.html

I compiled the list based on some of the links mentioned above.

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## billythekid

 *nlindblad wrote:*   

> I have a RaLink RT2500 and it works like a dream with all disros I've used it with (including Gentoo). Open networks or WEP is easy to set up, the hard part is WPA/WPA-802.11x but that can be done with wpa_supplicant I think.

 

Can you provide a link to the drivers you used?

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## scoobydu

 *billythekid wrote:*   

>  *nlindblad wrote:*   I have a RaLink RT2500 and it works like a dream with all disros I've used it with (including Gentoo). Open networks or WEP is easy to set up, the hard part is WPA/WPA-802.11x but that can be done with wpa_supplicant I think. 
> 
> Can you provide a link to the drivers you used?

 

Not yet with 2.6.14 and the ralink drivers with WPA...

 *Quote:*   

> http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

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## xbot

Got a Ralink 7128g Wireless PCI Card with RT61 chipset.

PCI ID 1814:0301

Kernel 2.6.16 

The driver on the CD they come with this card doesnt work realy.     :Confused: 

I downloaded the source from the ralink site. (they compile nicely but i get OOPS after setting something like essid)    :Shocked: 

Tried the rt2x00 driver from serialmonkey site well same prob.  :Evil or Very Mad: 

So i switched to ndiswrapper and the card works well ^_^

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