Wireless card w/rt2500 chipset + SUSE 10; help setup!
 

I've been beating my head against a brick wall trying to get my computer running SUSE Linux 10 to use my wireless card. SUSE recognizes the card correctly, and has used it to communicate in the past (It knew the MAC of my AP which I'd never entered). kinternet even claims to successfully connect to the AP (Can't ping anything - not even the Wireless AP).

At this point, I've pretty much given up trying to get the thing to work - The GUI tools are full of crap when they say things are working, and I don't know of any CLI programs to configure the card or where the .conf files are.

I'm not entirely sure if the cause is software or hardware though; ifconfig shows ra0 with all the settings I gave it, iwconfig shows the following (Copied over ten-finger interface):

ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID=""
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 Ghz Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality: 0/100 Signal Level=-120dBm Noise Level=-196dBm
Rx invalid nwid... crypt... frag...
Tx excessive...

I have no clue how it could actually have no signal - there is no metal between it and the AP! Should I just go and get the USB plugin version that I can put on top of my monitor?

i know what your going through.

type dmesg in a terminal, the last few lines should give any information i.e. if its failing to talk to the card, no firmware etc.

you may also have to set the essid, key and channel and commit it to the card then bring it up:

iwconfig <if> essid <essid>
iwconfig <if> channel <chennel-no. or freq>
iwconfig <if> key <wep key>
iwconfig <if> commit

ip link set <if> up

once this is done your card should start talking to the ap properly. at this stage you will either need to set an IP on the card or run your dhcp client across the card.

i hope this helps a little.

I have had similar problems using suse 10 and an rt2500 chipset wireless card.
Mine just freezes during the configuration etup at 63%

Does your access point offer a DHCP server? If so, you could try to set up the wireless interface in YaST.

On the bottom of the interface setup screen, you may need to enter your host name in the Advanced -> DHCP Client Options dialog. Check the [X] Request Broadcast Response box and enter your host name under "DHCP Client Identifier. I'm not certain this is absolutely necessary, by my wireless didn't work before doing this.

If you want, you could try to manually assign an IP address to the wireless interface with the ifconfig command.
Also, if your host has a NIC card, make sure it is down with the "rcnetwork stop eth0" command. Running "ifdown eth0" will do the same thing. If both interfaces are on the same subnet, your wireless interface will not work.
Shutting down eth0 ( I'm assuming that is the name ) will fix things.

The network configuration files are in /etc/sysconfig/network/
The configuration for a particular interface will look like: ifcfg-ra0, however, the last part could be a hardware based name.

I am not sure this thread is still actual but here is something to try:

I just installed a rt2570 based USB network card from Belkin (F5D7050) in Suse 10.0 with success. Otherwise I could not write this :D

First of all Suse 10 standard recognize this USB as a network card and uses the rt2570 Ralink driver. Everything looks fine, but it does not work. (driver successfully loaded, it is configured, ifconfig shows rausb0 with IP but no connection)

So I had to do some hacking first. I moved rt2570.ko from /lib/modules/kernel/extra to an other directory. This way Suse did not see my card anymore when i plug/unplug it (Check with tail -f /var/log/messages in a terminal when you do this. There should be no drivers loaded, only your device)

Then I installed ndiswrapper-1.10 and used the rt2500usb.inf (and .sys) file from the Windowz cd. (for instructions see: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation)

After the installation you must configure the new divice with yast > networkdevices > networkcard.
Add new > device type=wireless, check USB box, activate at hotplug and user controlled. The rest of the configuration is user dependent.

After the card is configured I had to restart X and a new internet tool Kinternet showed in the tray. With it you can monitor available networks and connect to them.

So far it works fine! I only need to figure out how to automatic load ndiswrapper after reboot. I need to know where to add this module in Suse. Suse has no /etc/modules.

Good luck to you all.

Loading the ndiswrapper module at boot
 

For SUSE10.0 open yast
open /etc/sysconfig editor
browse to 'system' - 'kernel' - 'MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT'
enter: ndiswrapper
close yast.

enjoy

????
 

WHAT??? I dont understand what the hell you are saying

No problem,

If you got ndiswrapper to work, it would be nice if it also works after reboot.
In my case the ndiswrapper module was not loaded after reboot.
Result: when I plugged in the usb-networkcard nothing happened. (no drivers loaded)
Every time I did:
depmod -a
modprobe ndiswrapper
After adding 'ndiswrapper' in YAST /etc/sysconfig this was solved.