I got this to work with the drivers from RaLink, although only under 2.4, and couldn't get iwconfig to give me anything as they claimed. I ended up using the alternate method where a static file you could settings edit could be placed in /etc/Wireless/RT2500STA/RT2500STA.dat

I didn't even bother with their GUI utilities.

The iwpriv commands they provided did work.

Ndiswrapper, using both the Linksys window's driver as well as the one directly from RaLink, would just lock the machine, loglessly, under 2.4 and 2.6. Probably something Mandrake did to the kernel, but as I needed to have the wireless working in order to get fresh kernel source... when I finally got the wireless working, I blew it off. I was on vacation afterall helping out a friend.

Overall, get an Atheros card. This kind of pseudo-vendor-provided mess is what makes the RTL8180 and the adm8211 horrible cards as well.

Cheers,

Finegan

Dont even bother trying the linux drivers. Go straight to DNIS Wrapper. It was a hastle getting it to work but it works great now. My main problem was that i forgot to edit the /etc/network/interfaces file so that it would get a DHCP address.

THIS IS NOT A NEWBIE CARD. If you feel like a moderate challange then go for it and have fun!

For the Rt2500 card, one should not be using the NDISwrapper. This is only a temporary solution, and should reserved for those card that do not have drivers for linux, or are to buggy to function correctly. I am currently using the rt2500 driver maintained by Serialmonkey. This driver works great. http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Also if you are someone using a 64 bit machine, you cannot use NIDSwrapper at this point in the game. You will need real drivers. Just an idea of the stability of this driver: i have been using the windows driver in windows as well and i often loose conectivity. but never in linux.

I used the driver available from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

It is based on the driver supplied by ralink.
I'm a bit of a newbie, but I found it quite easy to install. This was the first time I had compiled a program, but it didn't take too long to get working.
There are instructions for a number of distibutions on the site.

Have been meaning to rate this card for a while, but didn't realize there was already one here. It's really hard to find. A more intuitive place for it would seem to be 'Network Cards ... Realtek'. I'm glad to see that the last couple reviews show that the word on this chipset is finally beginning to get out. I posted these comments to a regular forum, but wanted them here as well.

Do NOT screw around with ndis wrappers for this card. Go to http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ... get their drivers and follow their installation instructions carefully. When you get to the point where they want you to use the 'iw...' commands, do this first:

depmod -a
modprobe rt2500
ifconfig ra0 up

Then carry on.

This is not a difficult driver to get working and it is a great chipset.

Found this chipset on a Hawking HWP54G card. Used the rt2x00.serialmonkey.com drivers, beta 3. Up under FC3, FC4, working on SuSE 10.0. Ongoing documentation of newbie pitfalls and learning how to overcome them at my blog. I found a lot of ways the install can fail by searching though forums, but it's teaching me Linux quickly!