# Buying a new WLAN NIC

## WxY

I'm interested in buying a Zonet ZEW1690 for my home server to bump my wireless AP into 802.11n. The chipset on the card is a Ralink RT3062 apparently, though I'm not very good at digging up this kind of info so I wanted to have 2nd check with you guys on whether it supports master mode with WPA2.

Cheers

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## chithanh

The rt3062 chipset uses the rt2800pci driver, which should work fine if you use kernel 2.6.38.

See http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers for which hardware/drivers support AP mode.

If you see firmware related problems in dmesg, grab the latest firmware files from here.

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## WxY

I've just got the card today, rebuilt my kernel with RT2800pci and RT2x00pci and neither works after modprobing them. The driver provided by ralink called RT3062sta works but it don't allow master mode. Should I try to return the card?

EDIT: The software package provided by zonet (windows only) seems to support AP mode so I'm guessing master mode has to be software emulated? o_O

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## chithanh

The sta driver from ralink does not support AP mode. Only the rt2800pci driver supports AP mode. What is your kernel version?

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## WxY

I'm using 2.6.37-r4 (amd64). The driver shows up in menuconfig and it builds fine, it even modprobes okay too but nothing comes up in ifconfig :/

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## chithanh

As I wrote in my first reply, you have to use kernel 2.6.38

EDIT: Alternatively you can use the compat-wireless kernel drivers, which give you latest wireless drivers for older kernels. http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download

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## WxY

I've tried using compat-wireless (i heard ati-drivers breaks in 2.6.38r3). Got the latest snapshot, configured it and built it and rebuilt my initramfs too. Did it with generalized configurations as well as configured specifically for rt2x00. Still nothing. And by nothing I mean it won't even load the mods and if I modprobe it, still nothing happens

I'm guessing I need to apply a firmware file maybe? In which case I know where to find it but I have no idea how to apply it. (the .bin file that is)

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## dE_logics

You should've bought an Adata card. All their products support Linux.

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## WxY

I guess I'll wait for 2.6.38 to stabilize on amd64 systems then  :Sad: 

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## dE_logics

 *WxY wrote:*   

> I guess I'll wait for 2.6.38 to stabilize on amd64 systems then 

 

It does not break ATI (the xf86 drivers), I've tried it.

Actually you'll hear a lot of things about every kernel version, but most of them are not relevant to you (this happens in my case)... and in some it's not reproducible at all.

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## John R. Graham

 *dE_logics wrote:*   

> You should've bought an Adata card. All their products support Linux.

 Finding it hard to find links to this manufacturer. Could you share some specifics, please?

- John

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## dE_logics

 *John R. Graham wrote:*   

>  *dE_logics wrote:*   You should've bought an Adata card. All their products support Linux. Finding it hard to find links to this manufacturer. Could you share some specifics, please?
> 
> - John

 

Sorry, it was a-link

http://www.a-link.com/

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## WxY

 *dE_logics wrote:*   

>  *WxY wrote:*   I guess I'll wait for 2.6.38 to stabilize on amd64 systems then  
> 
> It does not break ATI (the xf86 drivers), I've tried it.
> 
> Actually you'll hear a lot of things about every kernel version, but most of them are not relevant to you (this happens in my case)... and in some it's not reproducible at all.

 

I donno... a compromise in this server's availability would be a huge inconvenience for me.

It's running a 6 disk mdadm raid10 array and the root fs is on a LV. If the box snaps and decides to nuke an inode table or two I would be screwed cause its running all the vital services at my house. i.e. ether switch, wireless AP, dns & http cache, http server, svn server, print server, torrent downloader, general purpose storage, client backups, and it acts as an interface to the home automation devices I've made / bought / hacked.

Sadly, I don't have any replicas setup for the executed binaries yet though I am almost done writing a distributed backup solution for it. But until then, this thing is absolutely not going to be running experimental kernels that could result in data loss beyond a 1 day rebuild delay :S.

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## dE_logics

 *WxY wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ...acts as an interface to the home automation devices I've made / bought / hacked.
> 
> 

 

You mean Cisco style?

Anyway NEVER buy officially incompatible Linux hardware (like everything from WD), that way the company will continue to think no one uses Linux and ignore it's compatibility in the future.

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## WxY

Cisco style? as in the server controlls the other things? yeah i suppose thats one way to look at it

WD? as in Western digital? I just assumed they only made harddrives (and friggn great ones too) which if I remember right is all so standardized up the butt that theres no compatability issues ever.

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