# RaLink RT2561/RT61 Help

## VinnieNZ

Hi.

I've managed to get my wireless PCI card working using the official Ralink RT61 linux driver from their website and using /etc/conf.d/wireless with wireless-tools to get it to connect to the network.

The only problem is that I can't work out anyway of getting the device to come up on system startup without user intervention - mainly because I need to do:

# cd /usr/local/src/RT61_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.4.0/Module

# insmod rt61.ko

 to get the card to come up.

I can then do the /etc/init.d/net.ra0 that I've got and all is good.

How can I get this module to load automatically on system boot so that the net.ra0 script can start?

Thanks,

Vinnie

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## VinnieNZ

Just in case anyone is wondering why I'm using the driver from the ralink site, its because I had issues with getting any of the other ones to work.

rt2500 could be modprobe'd, but wouldn't see the device.

rt2x00 (both portage and nightly build) wouldn't work - I get a "rt61pci: Unknown symbol request_firmware_nowait" error.

So if anyone could help with getting the rt2x00 I'm happy to try this method too.

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## troymc

Do you need to leave the module in that directory?  Or is that just where you built it?

Try copying it into: /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless

Then run depmod

The list the module in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

Run modules-update

Then it should be autoloaded at boot.

troymc

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## mmiller0521

Any idea if its possible to do a Gentoo install on a PC that only has wireless as a network option? I currently run PCLinuxOS on my PC upstairs becasue it has the rt61 working right out of the box. Any ideas how to do this on Gentoo? I really really would rather have Gentoo working. 

Thanks.

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## VinnieNZ

Sorry, I didn't try to do the install from the wireless card - I just put a PCI wired NIC in and used that.

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## mmiller0521

Thats what I was afraid of. I wish Gentoo would detect my wireless fo rme to do the install!

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## Cyber_Ninja

does your internet work from the livecd?

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## dabicho

 *troymc wrote:*   

> Do you need to leave the module in that directory?  Or is that just where you built it?
> 
> Try copying it into: /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
> 
> Then run depmod
> ...

 

Hey. I have the same problem here.

I just put it into local and added it as a required scritp for net.ra0 which is just a link to net.lo

bad thing but I found no other way

I haven't tried storing it in the modules directory because I googled posts sayin the module didn't work allright if you didn't insmod'ed it.

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## micmac

Hi!

I put together two ebuilds for the RT61 cards. You can find them in Gentoo's Bugzilla. They should work.  :Wink: 

mic

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## Enverex

 *micmac wrote:*   

> Hi!
> 
> I put together two ebuilds for the RT61 cards. You can find them in Gentoo's Bugzilla. They should work. 
> 
> mic

 

Those ebuilds to NOT work for the RT61 cards. It's been established that the only driver that works for this card is the rt61 closed source driver from the official site (and it's not particually good too, I only get 1.5MiB/s).

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## micmac

 *NightShade737 wrote:*   

>  *micmac wrote:*   Hi!
> 
> I put together two ebuilds for the RT61 cards. You can find them in Gentoo's Bugzilla. They should work. 
> 
> mic 
> ...

 

It works on my box (x86). Using it for days without a problem (2.6.16/17).

```
lspci -v

...

01:08.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI

        Subsystem: Linksys WMP54G ver 4.1

        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 22

        Memory at e4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]

        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

...
```

```
dmesg |grep -i rt61

rt61 1.1.0 CVS CVS http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com

RT61: Vendor = 0x1814, Product = 0x0301

RT61: RfIcType= 3

RT61: RfIcType= 3

dmesg |grep -i ra0

ra0 (WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !

```

```
iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

ra0       RT61 Wireless  ESSID:"xyz"  Nickname:"xyz"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.447 GHz  Access Point: x:y:z

          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s

          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Link Quality=88/100  Signal level:-65 dBm  Noise level:-79 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

vpnlink   no wireless extensions.
```

Speed is good. I saw up to 1.7MB/s on good servers. I'm not in a LAN so I can't tell how fast it really is.

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## azlan

I think the reason why the ebuilds don't work is simply this...

05:09.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g

        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Unknown device b833

        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 5

        Memory at feaf0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]

        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

different subsystems..

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