Linksys WMP54G (RT61 chipset) on Fedora Core 4

Thought I’d post the results of my struggles. This is how I got it working.


Steps:

1. Verify what chipset you have. There are several different versions of this wireless card and they have different Ralink chips. Some have the RT2400, others will have the RT2500 or RT61 chipsets. The best way to do this is in Windows XP by looking at the “Properties” and “Driver Info” for the card. My Win driver is rt61.sys.

2. Download the linux driver for your chipset from ralinktech (support) site. If you have an RT61 chipset as I do; you’ll want the “RT_61_Linux_STA” driver. I recommend not using the rt61 driver on the “serial monkey” website as it tends to lock up Fedora.

3. Build Instructions:

A. $tar -xvzf RT61_Linux_STA_Drv_x.x.x.x.tar.gz
go to "./RT61_Linux_STA_Drv_x.x.x.x/Module" directory.

I put mine in the /usr/local directory.

B. You’ll need to edit the config.mk file to get the module to compile properly. Change both paths to the applicable directories on your Fedora installation. If you’re running a stock FC4 installation; edit it to look like this:
LINUX_SRC=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.11-1.1369_FC4-i686
TARGET_MODDIR=/lib/modules/2.6.11-1.1369_FC4

C. Let’s build it ->> $make all # compile driver source code

D. Add the following directories to Fedora:
mkdir /etc/Wireless

mkdir /etc/Wireless/RT61STA

E. Now, copy the firmware drivers over ->> $cp rt2561.bin /etc/Wireless/RT61STA/ # copy firmware
$cp rt2561s.bin /etc/Wireless/RT61STA/
$cp rt2661.bin /etc/Wireless/RT61STA/

F. $dos2unix rt61sta.dat
$cp rt61sta.dat /etc/Wireless/RT61STA/rt61sta.dat
# !!!check if it is a binary file before loading !!!

G. Load and test the driver:
# $/sbin/insmod rt61.ko
# $/sbin/ifconfig ra0 inet YOUR_IP up
I just use /sbin/ifconfig ra0 up

Configure the driver with iwconfig for your settings. I can’t help much here as your settings are specific. I’ll show you mine:
$iwconfig ra0 essid any
$iwconfig ra0 mode managed
$iwconfig ra0 channel 6

If all’s well, you should see something similar to the following:

ra0 RT61 Wireless ESSID:"goesh" Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:03:52:F2:19:60
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=75/100 Signal level:-57 dBm Noise level:-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Now, get an IP address from your DHCP server:
dhclient ra0

At this point you should be able to ping and surf the internet.

H. Edit the /etc/Wireless/RT61STA/rt61sta.dat file to add your config settings. Here’s mine:
This is a binary file, so you’re supposed to use the -b option when calling it up with vi.

vi -b rt61sta.dat

[Default]
CountryRegion=0
CountryRegionABand=7
WirelessMode=0
# SSID=AP350
SSID=goesh
NetworkType=Infra
Channel=6
AuthMode=OPEN
EncrypType=NONE
DefaultKeyID=1
Key1Type=0
Key1Str=0123456789
Key2Type=0
Key2Str=
Key3Type=0
Key3Str=
Key4Type=0
Key4Str=
WPAPSK=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
TxBurst=0
PktAggregate=0
TurboRate=0
WmmCapable=0
AckPolicy1=0
AckPolicy2=0
AckPolicy3=0
AckPolicy4=0
BGProtection=0
IEEE80211H=0
TxRate=0
RTSThreshold=2347
FragThreshold=2346
RoamThreshold=75
PSMode=CAM
TxPreamble=0
FastRoaming=0
DEVICE=ra0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
TYPE=Wireless
MODE=managed
ESSID=goesh
CHANNEL=6
RATE=Auto

I. Now create (and edit) an interface configuration file for the card in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.
vi ifcfg-ra0

here’s mine:

DEVICE=ra0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
TYPE=Wireless
MODE=managed
ESSID=goesh
CHANNEL=6
RATE=Auto

J. Add the following line to your /etc/modprobe.conf file:
alias ra0 rt61

If you get a message on reboot similar to “(rt61) device doesn’t seem to be present”, copy the rt61.ko module from the /lib/modules/2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/extra folder to the /lib/modules/2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/kernel/drivers/net and /lib/modules/2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless directories.

That **should** do it. See the RT61_Linux_STA_Drv1.x.x.x/Module/readme file for more details.

for some odd reason this didn't work on Fedora Core 5 no matter where I put the rt61.ko. I had to write an install command into modprobe.conf, something like

install ra0 insmod /path/to/rt61.ko

Addendum: wpa_supplicant is not necessary if you'd rather skip the rest of this stuff. You already know your SSID. Just set up the rt61 driver manually using the above instructions. wpa_supplicant is handy though, if for some reason you want to browse available wireless networks and set them up in a gui like in windows xp...

wpa_supplicant may already be installed on Fedora but that version won't support the rt61 so you'll get errors and have to restart the network if you use it... To make it work better, just ignore the old rpm and download a fresh copy from source. Rebuild it according to the rt61 instructions. You will have to compile in support for the rt61 into it. It will install to /usr/local/sbin so be sure to run it from the new location to start the service. Something like:

/usr/local/sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -ira0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Now you will be able to browse available wireless networks with wpa_gui, er, you may have to yum install wpa_supplicant_gui too.

Thanks, it's bookmarked! I have the same chipset and remember spending a long time figuring a lot of these things out. If only I'd had this back then! As I'm building a new computer soon with my old wireless card, I'll no doubt be using this as a guide to remind me!

I tried this procedure on Fedora Core 6 (and the wireless card seems to work. But the one problem I see is that on reboot, I always see “(rt61) device doesn’t seem to be present". Now after bootup, if I manually try "/sbin/insmod /path/to/rt61.ko" then the interface comes up and starts working. I even tried adding
install ra0 insmod /path/to/rt61.ko to the modprobe.conf file and the issue still persists.

Am I missing something here. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

As a follow up to my post / question earlier...

I had the wireless card (WMP54G) working on Fedora Core 6 (kernel 2.6.18-1.2789_fc6). I had to manually load the driver and get the interface up and running. Then the Package Manager in Gnome popped up a box saying it found package updates, collected the information along with the dependencies and updated the softwares and I had to reboot the system.

The system booted back up with the new kernel now 2.6.19-1.2911_fc6. Now "/sbin/insmod rt61.ko" returns
insmod:error inserting 'rt61.ko': -1 Invalid module format

Could someone please let me know what this means ?

Would appreciate any help.

Thanks

You would think Fedora would have built in driver support for wireless networks, considering how popular they are getting?

I am using the ndiswrapper program with the rt61.inf drivers from windows.

I can see the hardware as being installed and ok, and it gets an active ping from my router, but it will not grab an IP Address for DHCP.

Wireless Settings -

Mode = Managed
Network name = DoomSlayer(SSID)
Channel is gray with a 1
Transmit Rate is Auto and also gray.
I have my key listed with 0x(hex) then my 26 digits

FC 6 - Standard Kernel (no updates)
WMP54G V4.1

-----------------------------------------
I first triend to install with compiling the wireless drive into the kernel, but I had no luck with that.

Any help anyone can provide will be greatful.