I just did a clean install of FC6 on a newly built machine and I'm trying to get online but have so far met with little success. I am running the x86_64 version and kernel 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6. My ONLY way to get online is over a wireless network, I do not have an accessible wired network. I have a working Mac/Windows Boot Camp laptop that is online. I bought a Wireless USB adapter with the Ralink RT73 chipset and need to get it working. Problem is, all the instructions I find talk about using yum or give instructions that assume that I know a lot about working in the terminal. I would really appreciate instructions that actually tell me what to type to make this work. I can follow directions just assume I know nothing about command lines, I've lived in the GUI my entire life.

Perhaps if you posted the instructions you don't understand or a link to those instructions ... If posible, tell us what you find confusing.

Here are the instructions I tried to follow

* plug in the hardware and verify that the system recognizes it. “dmesg”
* get the specific hardware details with “/sbin/lsusb,” it should look something like this”
o lsusb
+ Bus 005 Device 002: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp.
* from the above command we can see that it’s a Ralink 2573 model adapter, as we allready know we’re dealing with this chip set integrated on a USB adapter. We are very much in luck because Ralink releases a lot of there code and is a friend to the Open Source community.
* Next we can get the most supported and full featured version of the Ralink driver at http://rt2×00.serialmonkey.com/. While we can also get a version of the driver directly from Ralink however there have been reports of instability.
* Make sure that you download the 73 version of the driver.
o http://rt2×00.serialmonkey.com/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz
* as with most, extract the driver, configure it and install it
o tar xvf rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz
o cd rt73.x.x
o ./configure
o make
o make install
+ optinally you can do a “make install-fedora” however it can sometimes cause other issues
* next insert the module
o first copy the newly created module to the proper directory
+ cp rt73.ko lib/modules/{kernelrev}/drivers/net/Wireless
o now activate the module
+ /sbin/modprobe rt73
* and that’s it, you should now be able to test you’re newly installed wireless adapter.
o /sbin/iwconfig
+ This lists the available wireless adapters, you should see something like rausb0 listed
o /sbin/iwlist rausb0 scan
+ Does a simple scan of the environment looking for AP’s broadcasting an essid
o If you would like to test kismet with the adapter
+ yum -y install kismet
+ /sbin/iwconfig rausb0 mode monitor
+ kismet -c rt2500,rausb0,kismet

now when I cd to the uncompressed folder and type ./configure it gives me an error message.

then I have no idea what this means when it says "make make install" what exactly do I type. then what does insert the module mean and what is the proper directory to copy the newly created module to. what does the line "+ cp rt73.ko lib/modules/{kernelrev}/drivers/net/Wireless" mean and also how do I "activate the module".

if someone could just add some detail to these instructions, tell me what to type?

If you can't get this to work, then everytihing else is irrelevant, so we need to start here. Can you post the error message?

You probably got this right, but it didn't work because the confiugre step didn't work. But just to be absolutely clear, what you type is:

The make install command needs to be executed as root, so if you are still a regular user, type su (and give root's password when prompted) before make install. I would generally run configure and make as a normal user and su to root for make install, but the normal user, of course, must have write permissision for the directory you ared doing this in.

As best as I can figure out, "insert module" simply refers to the cp (copy) command that follows. {kernelrev} simply referst to your current kernel revision, which you can find out by typing the command:

It might help you understand what you are doing (and hence make the commands a little less mysterious) if I give a brief explanation ... Linux can dynamically load and unload "kernel modules" while it is running to give it more or less fucntionality. (This removes the need to compile every conceivable thing into the kernel, which could result in a huge kernel.) Device drivers are usually compiled as kernel modules (frequently just called "modules"), which is what (when it finally works!) you just did. Each kernel version has its own directory try in /lib/module for the modules that were compiled for it. I sugest you look at this by typing

If you just have one version of the Linux kernel on you machine, you will only see one directory. Otherwsise you will see one for each kernel version. The cp command copies your newly compile kernel into the correct directory.

So if (for example) uname -r returned 2.6.17-3, you would type:

Again, as best as I can figure, "activating the module" simply refers to loading the module into the running kernel with the command:

Both the cp command and the modprobe command command need to be run as root. In other words, you can do the ./configure and make commands as a normal user and then you must become root (using su) to run the make install, cp and modprobe commands. And now that I review this, this sequence of commands sounds a little weird, because usually make install will copy any modules where they need to be, and you wouldn't have a cp command. So I don't know what to tell you about that -- I guess just follow the instructions, but it does seem strange.

But first, you must get the ./configure step to work, so please post the error message that that is giving you.