# USB Wireless Compatibility

## fatboyjim

Just moved into a new flat, where I get free internet via wireless. I thought I'd just move my laptop up here, use my PCMCIA card and that'd be fine

Here's the rub, my laptop's mobo recently got fried  :Smile: 

So I'd like to get my gentoo box on the net up here instead, seeing as it's a shuttle, a PCI wireless card isn't an option. I'm thinking about getting a USB card

It was a _bit_ of a bitch to setup my laptop with gentoo and wireless (PCMCIA) if i remember correctly. I don't really want to have hassle to set this one up, although I assume wireless compatibility has improved since I last tried

My question is: Has anybody got a USB Wireless card working in Gentoo? If they have, could they please post the model, price and instructions on how to get it working?

Thanks in advance

Jim

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## NeddySeagoon

fatboyjim,

I have a ra2570 based wireless dongle. £20 in the UK, probably less most places.

It needs the rt2570-1.1.0-b1.tar.gz driver, or later, which is not in portage. It does not work with the rt2500 which is.

Put wireless networking in the kernel and follow this post.

It works on both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0.

The exact model I have is a Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adaptor Part # F5D7050uk. The F5D7050 is the USB Vendor/DeviceID too. The box has a small sticker saying ver.2001uk

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## fatboyjim

Superb, thanks for the information

Looks like I can get one for about 20 quid as you said.

Will give you a shout when it doesn't work, eh  :Razz: 

Cheers

Jim

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## NeddySeagoon

fatboyjim,

yep, fine.  I can post my /etc/conf.d/net if you want, or is you search a little, its already on the forums in a ra0 related thread.

PM me if you have problems.

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## etnt

Just to give you an alternative: I've got a dlink USB adapter (prism2 chip),

which works fine with linux-wlan-ng.

Watch out for the Netgear USB adapter since it has changed to not use

prism2 anylonger (I bought it at first, beliving it was supported...)

Strangely enough, I have never gotten wpa_supplicant or wireless-tools

to work with my Dlink though...

Cheers, Tobbe

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## fatboyjim

Got the card, plugged it in. Built driver as per your instructions. modprobe rt2570 shows "rausb0: unable to signal thread"

This also appears in dmesg when I try /etc/init.d/net.rausb0 start (when it tries to connect to my AP)... No access points found is the error there

Clues?  :Sad: 

Jim

EDIT: False alarm, I checked my config again and I had a typo. Works perfectly now... thanks very much!  :Smile: 

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## fatboyjim

OK. I reinstalled the other day, and now wireless doesn't work

Seems to load the device and find the access point OK, but when using dhcpcd to get an IP address, it causes a kernel panic. (something about invalid operand: PREEMPT SMP)

Any ideas? rt2570 module on that Belkin USB card, AMD64 - 2.6.13-gentoo-r2

Cheers

Jim

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## NeddySeagoon

fatboyjim,

Did you rebuild the Wireless driver against your new kernel ?

Being an external module, every time you upgrade the kernel, you have to rebuild all external modules.

I'm not sure if this is a wireless problem or kernel problem. PREEMPT SMP possibly give s a few hints.

You should not have SMP in your kernel unless you have several CPUs in your box. Mabe turning that off (if its on) will help.

Meanwhile I would go back to the older kernel that worked and put the newer kernel upgrade in beside that.

I'm still running 2.6.12 here because 2.6.13 only lets me type at most 3 letters on my USB keyboard before it dies.

There may be a later release of the driver by now, thats worth a check. As a last resort there is also the CVS version. Thats last nights commit - it may not even compile.

I have a laptop I can test 2.6.13-gentoo-r2 with the rt2570 driver but its a P3. I don't have access to an AMD 64 at all.

Let me know how you get on.

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## fatboyjim

Thanks for the reply.

I had to remove SMP and Pre-emptive support from my kernel to get it not to panic  :Very Happy: 

Will stick them back in at some point, cos I've noticed my music does skip a little bit etc without pre-empt on

I will try downgrading to 2.6.12 as well at some point, at least the internet is working now so I can jump on the forums without going down to the library  :Wink: 

Cheers

Jim

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## NeddySeagoon

fatboyjim,

premption should be invisible to applications but SMP is known to break things.

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## fatboyjim

That may be so, but I had to remove _both_ for it to work  :Smile: 

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