Ralink RT2760 Install

[jgerasmus]

Hi Guys,

Thought I would share my rt2760 installation on Gentoo which took me over a week to figure out! I read countless "similar" discussion on inet with lots of people struggling to just get the damn thing working!

Great, so here we go:

Kernel config: None. Yes, you don't need any kernel drivers as they will just cause you more headaches... Best would be to recompile kernel with NO Ralink support. The default drivers selected by Genkernel, ie rt2860, doesn't work. The staging driver, doesn't work. (Just to be clear, inet have lots of pointers saying that rt2860 chipset is similar and that you may use kernel drivers. This didn't work.) (If you don't want to recompile kernel without the drivers, check below.)

Download the Ralink driver [RT2860PCI/mPCI/CB/PCIe(RT2760/RT2790/RT2860/RT2890)] from http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2

Download the Ralink firmware [Firmware RT28XX/RT30XX PCI/mPCI/PCIe/CardBus series (RT2760/RT2790/RT2860/RT2890/RT3060/RT3062/RT3562/RT2860/RT2760/RT2890/RT2790/RT3090)] from the same site as above.

Now this part is strange... The file available for download [Ralink driver] currently is a a tar.bz2 file. However, when you try and extract it, you will get a error. Change the extension to .tgz and all will be fine!

Extract both downloaded files. Copy the firmware file to /lib/firmware

The README file for the driver is pretty complete. It explains the settings you need to change, and how to get the driver working.

If you would like to use the card with NetworkManager, this was my config in short:
Change 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y' in os/linux/config.mk
Then just run: make && make install

To load the driver: modprobe rt2860sta
You should probably restart NetworkManager: /etc/init.d/NetworkManager restart (or "start" if you haven't started it yet!)

Autoload driver: echo "rt2860sta" >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

Confirmed to work with WPA-PSK (TKIP). (ie password protected wifi)

Use with standard kernel drivers:
You will need to unload all the currently loaded modules first.
First check which drivers have loaded: lsmod | grep rt2
Now unload all the modules as listed. ie: rmmod rt2860pci rt2860lib rt2x00pci rt2x00lib
Now load your driver as above and all should be well! (NOTE: If you have the Staging driver installed, you will need to change directory to [extracted driver directory]/os/linux and typr: insmod rt2860sta.o
To keep the modules from loading on next boot add the following lines to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:
blacklist [module] (ie blacklist rt2860pci)

Some trouble shooting tips:
Check that the module has loaded: lsmod | grep rt2
-You should see ONLY rt2860sta
Check that the card has been registered: iwconfig
-You should see a ra0 entry (NOTE: If you haven't started NetworkManager (or similar) it will only be a one-liner, no config details but it shows your card has been registered)
Check that the network is up: ifconfig
-You should see a ra0 entry with an IP address.
If NetworkManager keeps crashing, or not starting: (ie [!!])
-Try to disable the plugin in the config file '/etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf', change 'plugins=ifnet,keyfile' to 'plugins=keyfile'

[pilla]

Moved from Networking & Security to Documentation, Tips & Tricks.
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