View source for SuSE wireless card configuration

In this article, I will demonstrate how I was able to get my wireless card working on [[SuSE|openSuSE 10.2]].
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I have the following wireless card:
 Linksys WMP54G 2.0 PCI Adapter
 RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbux/mini-PCI (rev 01)

The fresh install of openSuSE 10.2 recognised my wireless card/adapter and configured it "properly" (i.e. it configured it as an rt2500 pci). Unfortunately, it didn't work. That is, using either Yast2 or the command line options (e.g. <tt>ifconfig</tt>, <tt>iwconfig</tt>, etc) and DHCP just didn't work.

The following commands all showed the correct module installed, but they don't seem to work:
 lsmod      # check for rt2500pci (or something similar)
 lspci -v   # should show the following (or something similar)
        Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Linksys WMP54G 2.0 PCI Adapter
        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 193
        Memory at d5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

Fortunately, there is a great website (and project) found here: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/ that is dedicated to improving the wireless capabilities of these cards/adapters.

== Getting it to work ==

* First, remove the default rt2500 driver from openSuSE 10.2:
 modprobe -r rt2500pci   # as root

* Prepare your kernel source (you will need to have the kernel source installed first):
 cd /usr/src/linux
 make mrproper
''Note: If <code>uname -p</code> yields i686 but no such directory exists, try a <tt>ln -s /usr/src/linux/arch/i386 i686</tt>; not sure if that is the best solution).''
 make cloneconfig
 make modules_prepare

* Download the latest CVS-daily from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/ and unzip/untar the CVS-daily. Enter the "Module" directory and execute:
 make
 make install   # as root

* Check that the card/adapter is configured and recognised:
 iwconfig

* If the ra0 or wlan0 shows "no wireless extensions" or nothing at all, then:
 modprobe rt2500

That should do it! Hope that helps someone. Not sure why openSuSE 10.2 shipped with a faulty module/driver.

Please note that you might also have to execute the following:
 /etc/init.d/network restart   # as root

You might also need to temporarily turn off ''all'' firewall related software/daemons (e.g. SuSEfirewall2, AppArmor, etc).
 SuSEfirewall2 stop
 /etc/init.d/smpppd stop

If you have a DHCP server running, it might get in the way of your wireless network scripts.
 ps -ef |grep dhcp  # If it is running, then
 kill -9 PID

==RutilT==
If none of the above works, check out the [http://cbbk.free.fr/bonrom/ RutilT] utility for Linux that helps you configure your wireless network devices (it has extra support for Ralink ones).

===Install===
 ./configure --kernel_sources=PATH  # (e.g. /usr/src/linux)
 make
 make install

===Run===
 rutilt

==See also==
*[[Network tools for Linux]]

==External links==
*[http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/ The rt2x00 Open Source Project]
*[http://en.opensuse.org/Wireless_Network_Card_Installation Wireless Network Card Installation]
*[http://cbbk.free.fr/bonrom/ RutilT]
*[http://openwrt.org/ OpenWrt] &mdash; a Linux distribution for embedded devices.

[[Category:Linux Command Line Tools]]