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[SOLVED] Installing / Enabling Ralink RT5390 During Install
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jebriggsy
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 5:52 pm    Post subject: [SOLVED] Installing / Enabling Ralink RT5390 During Install Reply with quote

Hello,

I'm switching to Gentoo from Ubuntu 11.10 after a couple years of being part of the *buntu community. I feel I know my way around Linux pretty well, but after getting stuck on only configuring a wireless network for the amd64 minimal install, I guess not so much, eh? lol.

The problem I'm having is getting my wireless card to function during install, which I need because I don't have a wired connection. I know the driver for my card is rt2800pci, but in /lib/modules/***/kernel/drivers/net/wireless the closest I can find is rt2x00pci. I'm assuming that this is a generic module for the Ralink PCI series, so I modprobed it, but it doesn't seem to work for my card. I figured perhaps I was doing something else wrong so I searched the forums a bit and came across this post which suggested symlinking net.wlan0 to net.lo (which, btw, why would one link the local loopback to the wireless interface?), but that didn't work either.

Specifically, no wireless interface is present in either ifconfig -a or iwconfig.

So I find myself stuck before I can even get to the fun parts of the gentoo install... can anybody offer some tips to get my wireless card working? Thanks in advance!


Last edited by jebriggsy on Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:27 pm; edited 1 time in total
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jebriggsy,

Welcome to Gentoo

You can use any Linux system to install Gentoo, including the Ubuntu 11.10 install you have now. If you go that route, you will need to free up space to make a partition for Gentoo.

If you want to remove Ubuntu 11.10, than start with a live distro that supports your wireless. The Gentoo minimal CDs do not provide wireless support.
If you want to save a CD, start with SystemRescueCd on USB.

If your Ubuntu install CD/DVD has live mode, you can use that too.
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NeddySeagoon

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those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
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jebriggsy
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
The Gentoo minimal CDs do not provide wireless support.


Well, there's my problem. I guess I assumed wireless support was included because the Handbook included instructions on configuring a wireless connection. I will be using the Kubuntu LiveCD I have lying around. Thanks a lot.

Are there any major differences in installing Gentoo from a non-Gentoo LiveCD?
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jebriggsy,

You need a root shell, as typing sudo all the time is a PITA.
Each time you boot the live media, you need to
Code:
mkdir /mnt/gentoo
since most distros don't provide that dir.
Thats where the handbook has you install gentoo but the name is not important as long as you can translate it on the fly.
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
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desultory
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 3:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jebriggsy wrote:
I figured perhaps I was doing something else wrong so I searched the forums a bit and came across this post which suggested symlinking net.wlan0 to net.lo (which, btw, why would one link the local loopback to the wireless interface?), but that didn't work either.
Just to clarify that point for future reference, it is done because the net.lo init script provides for setting up myriad different network configurations. The symbolic links allow reuse of that same script for multiple interfaces in such a way that updates are shared between all of the users of that script without further intervention by the system administrator.
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