# HELP：make rt73 working in arm9.

## yyyoabc

The supplier fo my arm board says that it supports WIFI card rt73, And i did find a rt73usb.ko under 

/lib/modules/2.6.30.mobi.merlin-mg3500.custom/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt73usb.ko, also the firmware rt73.bin it needs is under /lib/firmware. And the other modules rt73 get to use have already existed too. I run the following steps to make it work.

When I plug in the card,

root@mobicam3-001 # usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using dw_otg and address 2

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x81 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x1 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

root@mobicam3-001 # dmesg | grep usb

usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs

usbcore: registered new interface driver hub

usbcore: registered new device driver usb

usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using dw_otg and address 2

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x81 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x1 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

Then I run the following:

$ modprobe cfg80211

$ modprobe mac80211

$ modprobe input-polldev

$ modprobe crc-itu-t

$ modprobe rt2x00lib

$ modprobe rt2x00usb

$ modprobe rt73usb

I got these:

root@mobicam3-001 # dmesg | grep usb

usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs

usbcore: registered new interface driver hub

usbcore: registered new device driver usb

usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using dw_otg and address 2

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x81 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x1 has invalid maxpacket 64

usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

usbcore: registered new interface driver rt73usb

Then a “wlan0” shows up in /proc/net/wireless, 

root@mobicam3-001 # cat /proc/net/wireless

Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE

 face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 22

 wlan0: 0000    0     0     0        0      0      0      0      0   

But when I try to active wlan0,errors appears.

root@mobicam3-001 # ifconfig wlan0 up

rt73usb 1-1:1.0: firmware: requesting rt73.bin

phy0 -> rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Error - Failed to request Firmware.

ifconfig: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

And I am 100% sure that the rt73.bin exists in /lib/firmware. Could anybody check it for me? 

Thank you so much!!!

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## NeddySeagoon

yyyoabc,

Welcome to Gentoo.

It seems you have already done the hard part of wireless set up.  That's getting the kernel set up so your device is recognised.

The firmware name is important.  It must be /lib/firmware/rt73.bin exactly.  All lower case.

If you obtained the file as a zip file, you must decompress it, not rename it.

If the decompressed file is not called rt73.bin, its worth trying a rename.

Where did you get the firmware ?

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## yyyoabc

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> yyyoabc,
> 
> Welcome to Gentoo.
> 
> It seems you have already done the hard part of wireless set up.  That's getting the kernel set up so your device is recognised.
> ...

 

There is already  a rt73.bin in /lib/firmware, the board got it itself. Also, when i replaced the file with one from the CD which was given to me when i bought the card. It returns to the same error. I check the content of the two files with Uedit32 and got to know that they are actually the same.I am confused that the error still turns up.

root@mobicam3-001 # ifconfig wlan0 up

rt73usb 1-1:1.0: firmware: requesting rt73.bin

phy0 -> rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Error - Failed to request Firmware.

ifconfig: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Is there anything to do with the kernel or the hardware?

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## NeddySeagoon

yyyoabc,

Try 

```
$ grep LOADER /usr/src/linux/.config

CONFIG_FW_LOADER=y

# CONFIG_SND_HDA_PATCH_LOADER is not set
```

Your kernel must show CONFIG_FW_LOADER=y as that's the option that enables the kernel to load firmware.

What happens if you try to unzip your rt73.bin file?

If it works, the file you have been trying to use was zipped and using a compressed file will fail.

I have a working rt73 install on a retired laptop.  I'll post its rt73.bin file on the web later so I know you have a file that I know works.

-------- edit ---------

You can get the rt73 file in both bin and bin.zip forms here

In fact, there is a 30 month old entire browsable Gentoo install there

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