Trying to install etch with ZyXEL G-302
 

I have a ZyXEL G-302 wireless card that has a Penguine on the box.

I am trying to install etch, net-install, 2006-08-11. But the card is not detected, and I can not load the drivers.

I have read that this wireless card uses the drivers for RealTek RTL8185L. I found the drivers, downloaded them. Put the drivers on a floppy.

When etch can not find the drivers, it asks for a floppy. I give it the floppy, but always get a message that etch can not read the floppy. I have tried two different floppies, I know the floppies are good. I can read and write to the floppies on windows with no problem.

Etch will not go forward with the install without a floppy.

Is etch looking for a linux formated floppy? Is etch really unable to read the floppy, or is it just not finding the drivers? Is there anything I can do?

Here is where I read about the G-302 drivers:

http://opensuse.us/viewtopic.php?t=5...beb083fb1d18ba

Okay, trying something new.

I installed a regular nic in the box, and installed debian.

I copied the driver files I downloaded to /root/temp

As instruced in the readme file, I ran ./makedrv

The makedrv file looks like this:

---------
#!/bin/bash

tar -zvxf stack.tar.gz
tar -zvxf rtl818x.tar.gz
cd ieee80211
make clean
make
cd ../rtl818x-0.1
make clean
make
cd ../
----------------

First it puked because it couldn't find a directory:

make: *** /lib/modules/2.6.16-2-486/build: No such file or directoy. Stop.

For some reason, the build directory was not created. I tried creating it manually. Ran ./makedrv again, and got this:

make: *** No rule to make target `modules`. Stop.

I have no clue.

ZyXEL G-302: Works
 

Currenlty, I have the ZyXEL G-302 working under Suse 10.1 64-bit platform using the Linux drivers with out ndiswrapper. My only problem is getting the settings to load every time during boot.

When I try using Yast to configure the wireless setting my card stops working.

Which file do I edit to add the settings so I don't have to keep re-doing the configuration?

Note:
I used the drivers from Realtek site for the RTL8185L chip set. Using it right now to post this message.

Maybe the driver just does not work with debian? Should I wipe my debian install and install suse or redhat?

ZyXEL G-302: Works
 

After making the drivers did you load your wireless card?

Example, did you do the following:

su <root id> ./wlan0up

iwconfig wlan0 essid <name of lan>
iwconfig wlan0 key <encryption key> if using WEP

iwconfig (to view all settings are ok)

dhcpcd wlan0up

To verify connection was ok I launched my browser and pinged an ip address.

How I Got This To Work ...
 

Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier; I had the same problem initially - it's a kernel versioning issue at the root of it. I posted what's effectively a how-to to build & install the driver for this thing under Forums -> Linux -> Linux-Distributions -> RedHat, thread name "will redhat or centos work with a zyxel g-302 card?".

Note that the tarball contains source that's too old for any recent kernel; I think the cutoff was 2.6.8. You have to grab the code from CVS; I included all the details in the other post. Driver builds, works fine; I've even kludged in an init script to bring up the interface. Only drawbacks are that the driver is 802.11b only; I thought the card was a/b/g... The signal strength, SNR, etc. reported by iwconfig don't seem to be entirely correct. Also note that you have to have an IWCONFIG=ap <mac_addr_of_ap> line in your ifcfg-wlan[0-9]* file if you're not broadcasting your SSID (many don't, as it's more secure not to - it makes the network much harder to detect).

Not bad for the ten bucks I paid for the card - OK, $10 and about four hours... glad I don't bill myself.

Please let me know if I can be of help. I'm very much interested in seeing more native drivers get developed for Linux.

- Larry Morley