Linksys WMP600N wireless N ethernet card in Linux...it does work

Posted 05-09-2012 at 03:48 AM by vik
Updated 08-28-2013 at 10:45 AM by vik

Update: with kernel 3.9.11 I've had good luck with rt2800pci (driver in the Linux kernel) instead of Broadcom's rt2860sta driver. I can also connect to 5GHz networks with this driver.

If you can't/don't want to update your kernel to a later version, here are your options:

Stay with the same kernel version and utilize backports to use a newer driver with an older kernel. This is the new name for compat-wireless. See here: https://backports.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page.
Download Broadcom's rt2860sta driver from their site. I have not tried it in a long time: the last time I tried it with kernel 3.5.2 it caused hard locks after a few minutes. No idea if it works now.

Here's all you need to do:
First, install the firmware. For Gentoo it's rt2860-firmware and Debian it's firmware-ralink. Reboot or

Code:

modprobe -r rt2800pci
modprobe rt2800pci

To test:

Code:

ifconfig -a (should see a wlan0 entry)
ifconfig wlan0 up (shouldn't see any errors)

Now we just need to configure the card to connect with the network. There are several ways to do this: use NetworkManager, use wicd, or configure the network manually. As STDOUBT pointed out, if you don't have X you can also use an ncurses version of wicd named wicd-curses. I'll just explain how I configured my network manually. I have a WPA2 network and a hidden SSID.

In Debian you can do everything in /etc/network/interfaces.

wpa_passphrase <ssid>
type in your wifi password
copy the encrypted password (hex characters following psk=) and save for later
edit /etc/network/interfaces (omit all <> in the following code as well as comments in parenthesis). One thing to remember is that Debian uses '-' not '_' in this file, so it's wpa-driver not wpa_driver.

static IP:

Code:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid <ssid>
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk <encrypted_password_from wpa_passphrase>
wpa-scan-ssid 1 (only need this line if SSID is hidden)
wpa-group CCMP TKIP
wpa-pairwise CCMP TKIP
wpa-proto WPA RSN
address <your_static_ip>
netmask <your_netmask>
broadcast <your_network_broadcast_address> (usually last octet is .255)
gateway <your_router_ip>
dns-nameservers <ip_addresses_of_name_servers_separated_by_spaces_or_router_ip>

dhcp:

Code:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid <ssid>
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk <encrypted_password_from wpa_passphrase>
wpa-scan-ssid 1 (only need this if SSID is hidden)
wpa-group CCMP TKIP
wpa-pairwise CCMP TKIP
wpa-proto WPA RSN

/etc/init.d/networking restart or just reboot

in Gentoo:

edit /etc/portage/package.use (the default use flags may be fine, I'm not sure)
Code:
```
net-wireless/wpa_supplicant dbus eap-sim fasteap gnutls wps -ssl
```
emerge wpa_supplicant
wpa_passphrase <ssid>
type in your wifi password
copy the encrypted password (hex characters following psk=) and save for later

edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Code:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
network={
        priority=1
        scan_ssid=1 (for hidden networks)
        ssid="YourSSID"
        proto=WPA2
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        group=CCMP TKIP
        pairwise=CCMP TKIP
        psk="wpa_passphrase_encrypted_password"
}

edit /etc/conf.d/net

Code:

modules="wpa_supplicant"
wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext"
config_wlan0="<ip> netmask <netmask> brd <broadcast_network_address>"
routes_wlan0="default via <router_ip>"

edit /etc/resolv.conf:
Code:
```
nameserver <nameserver_ip_or_router_ip>
```

setup everything for automatic startup:

Code:

cd /etc/init.d
ln -s net.lo net.wlan0
rc-update add net.wlan0 default

Linksys WMP600N wireless N ethernet card in Linux...it does work

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