Difficulty with Rosewill RNX-G300EX

Chessman.exe · 01-21-2011, 02:28 AM

Hello, my name is Jared, I am new here and new at linux, I really hope I can get some help

Thanks!

WITH RESPECT TO OPENSuSE:

I have scaled the googles up and down for info on how to install drivers, all I got were the drivers and I couldn't figure out how to install it.
moreover, if i could get a specific step-by-step on how to make this driver install this here, I would be happy enough, that is if it fixed the problem... I understand the linux kernel required is 2.6.28, i have 2.6.25.5-1.1-pae. Will this be alright? If not, links on how to update linux kernel as i have not found this either.
Moving along.

More specifically, the NIC is also known as RA2561/RT61 802.11g PCI.

/sbin/lspci -n yields

03:01.0 0280: 1814:0301

/sbin/lspci yields

03:01.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI

and /usr/sbin/iwconfig yields

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thr=2352 B
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Linux wireless LAN support http://linux-wless.passys.nl

According to this, my wireless card is compatible as-is with my system.

dmesg|list shows at the very end (before crashing -_- )

skge eth0: enabling interface
phy0-> rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Error - Failed to request Firmware.

I know there is available firmware to write to the network card, but i do not want to brick it for my windows system...it already has enough trouble as it is (perhaps because of the outdated fw??)

I gave all the information I possibly could, and sorry for all the black space, but any and all help will be appreciated.

xeleema · 01-21-2011, 02:13 PM

Greetingz!

Welcome to the LQ! Now on to the show....

For starters, it's a bit hard to give a step-by-step for installing drivers for the "Rosewill RNX-G300EX". Not having one myself, I wouldn't know if the directions I gave would be successful or not.

Quote:

linux kernel required is 2.6.28, i have 2.6.25.5-1.1-pae. Will this be alright?

Well, therein lies the rub. Without a kernel that supports the black-magic the driver (aka "module") is looking for, you're stuck. However, you could have a heavily-patched kernel (like on Red Had Enterprise Linux or CentOS).
What specific version of openSUSE are you running? 11.3? There's a thread over on their forum specifically about updating the kernel on openSUSE 11.3.

Most of the time, when people talk about "loading firmware" in Linux, it's not really about reflashing the firmware on the device (at least not when it comes to Network Interface Cards of any sort).
The firmware is needed to inject into the running driver (or vice-versa), because the driver developer didn't get any help from the hardware manufacture on how to access the card's firmware.
(Someone feel free to chime in and correct me, I don't do a lot of driver development myself)

I have had a few RaLink-based cards (mostly rebranded LinkSys wireless cards) In fact I do have a "RaLink RT2561";

Code:

luser@server(Linux)$ lspci | grep -i rali
04:07.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
luser@server(Linux)$

The driver attached to it is the rt61pci that came with 2.6.18-194.3.1.el5 kernel source.
Try looking for the following module;

Code:

ls -l /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko

There's even a wiki for the group that maintains the kernel module.

Chessman.exe · 01-21-2011, 04:41 PM

Thanks for the swift reply!
Specifically, I am running OPENSuSE 11.0, after getting internet i'm hoping to upgrade if it means I wont have to go through this again. There is probably something miniscule that i am missing here, but i have scoured linux trying to figure out what oculd be wrong, tried different connection methods, nothing seems to work out :\

after checking

Code:

ls -l /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko

I found:

Code:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 43152 2008-06-08 04:54 /lib/modules/2.6.25.5-1.1-pae/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko

thanks again for the reply!