RT2500 wireless PCI card on Ubuntu

Got the two cards today. Ordered from i-Tech (mob in Sydney, had it delivered here). Were $59AUD each (plus shipping, which was $15 for the two of them).

Really painless setup!

One was for the Ubuntu system my mum uses, the other for the Windows system my brother uses. Well, the Ubuntu setup was easier than the windows one (try to get Windows to tell you the MAC address of the adapter… well… *of course* it’s under “Support” – where else would it be?).

I got the drivers from CVS from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com as the CVS ones have a few more fixes (makes it easier to build for one).

I got the following packages:
build-essential
cvs
linux-source-(whatever version it was).

cd /usr/src
tar xfj linux-source-whatever.tar.bz2
ln -s /lib/modules/the-right-version-number/build /usr/src/linux-whatever
cd /usr/src/linux-whatever
cp /boot/config-whatever .config
make modules

(as long as it builds the first few you’re fine and can ctrl-c the rest)

then i got the CVS drivers and built it like their docs say (make with the -C parameters).

depmod -a

then used the GUI tool to set it up (the Ubuntu one). The ralink graphical utility (install the kde-devel package to build it) lets you monitor link quality etc.

so, success!

7 thoughts on “RT2500 wireless PCI card on Ubuntu

  1. Thanks for the tip, my friend needed this and I wasn’t familiar with Ubuntu. But you tripped us up on one thing! He was complaining that it wasn’t working and when I carefully checked each line, I saw that the “ln -s” line was backwards! Better fix that! (-;

  2. Thanks for the tip! I wasn’t familiar with Ubuntu so I was finding it difficult to help my friend but this pointed us in the right direction… except for that “ln -s” line. It’s backwards! Better fix that! (-;

  3. I just installed Ubuntu Whoary and did exactly as described above however I don’t have the “build” directory in /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386

    I guess this is the reason I cannot compile the Module of rt2500

    Pls. let me know what I can do to solve this,

    with kind regards,

    Henk van der Es

  4. Thanks Stewart. My rt2400 works now under Ubuntu linux. I didn’t realise there was a GUI tool with Ubuntu, and I think it was actually the DNS settings preventing me from getting online. I’m not sure if your comment ‘Really painless setup!’ is sarcastic or not, but I sure hope it is!

    This should be linked from the rt2x00 wiki and/or Ubuntu forums. It should also go in search engine results under rt2400 linux, because the modules are similar.

    Finally: Henk, you need to create a symlink from /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/build to /usr/src/linux-2.6.10 (or whatever it is). The instructions above include the step but you need to work out your directories, and reverse the order of arguments (see other comments).

  5. yeah ok “””then used the GUI tool to set it up (the Ubuntu one). The ralink graphical utility (install the kde-devel package to build it) lets you monitor link quality etc.”””
    and
    “””I didn’t realise there was a GUI tool with Ubuntu”””
    neither did i and i still dont..whats it called and where is it.

    here is a more “hold the newbies hand verison of the above””
    http://mec-symonds.eng.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Saqqara/UbuntuMinitar

  6. Vector: I installed kde-desktop and with it comes kwifimanager that is an excellent tool for wireless config. With this tool enabled you will not need to manually configure for every AP or wired connection. Good luck!

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