RaLink/Edimax wireless on Mandriva 2007
 

Hi, I've just switched over to Mandriva, my first go at Linux so I'm totally clueless. I'm using an Edimax EW-7318Ug USB adapter, using the RaLink 802.11g driver. The machine is an AMD Athlon XP.

When I first installed Mandriva One 2007 it seemed to recognised the USB thing and RaLink came up as an option to configure wireless networking, but it failed to pick up my wireless and the light on the USB stick never lit up. So I tried to install the drivers.

The rt73.ko driver on the CD is for the wrong module (I tried using this and just got an "invalid module" message; mine is 2.6.17-5mdvlegacy), so I downloaded the RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.3.6.tar.gz file from the RaLink support site. However when I came to compile the drivers from this, the "cp Makefile.6 Makefile" command didn't seem to work - there was already a Makefile file there and I wasn't sure how to use the subsequent commands "$make all" and so on.

After this I got a bit stuck as there was no rt73.ko file or rt73.o, which I guess should have appeared with everything else when I used the tar command. Also, the dos2unix command didn't work. So I had nothing to copy into the drivers folder and as a result am still offline.

Any ideas how I can fix this? I was told that Linux is becoming more friendly to the average stupid computer user but not friendly enough for the likes of me!

PS - I am having to do all this in Mandriva's console as the pretty GUI (KDE) won't give me permission to make the changes that are needed.

Thanks very much.

Hi, I'm in the process of getting my wireless adaptor running too.

And it's almost there. My probs are loging and authentication, and I'm the admin so I don't have any one nearby to ask.

But, as far as compiling goes..........
The readme file in the /Modules directory of the driver (open with KATE or any other editor) will walk you through the process.

Yes you will need to over-write the standard Makefile, with one to match your kernel version.

The rt73.ko file will be compiled, first things first, do the Make aand make all.


Keep trying.....

Thanks, I thought I'd tried that but obviously I got it wrong. Are the make and make all commands done when it asks me whether I want to overwrite? (i.e. instead of typing "y")?

Any more tips gratefully received...

No it's done after. But the makefile for your kernel, 2.6 in this case, has to be moved into place.

So, just answer 'Y' and then if all goes well you can make the module and install it to the directory

for the networking modules. It may also add the module to the boot script.

This is why you need to read the readme for your Driver, AS I mentioned b4.

Try it!

Use the daily snapshot driver on rt2x00.serialmonkey project (Sourceforge) . It's work on 2.6.20 kernels. On my laptop the switch key of antenna not work with this driver but its not a problem.