Okay i have been looking around quite a bit for some info about this and it seems other slackware users (and all other distro's it seems) have had problems compiling the linux driver offered by manufacturer (Ralink) or setting up the opensource project - http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com
I have tried a couple of different versions now and each had slightly different instructions and did strange things like put the rt2500.ko module in /lib/modules/2.6.15/extra and also /lib/modules/2.6.15/kernel/drivers/usb/net

Wondering if anyone elase has got this working in Slackware? to install the latest version i just used #make #make install and there were no errors.
It has created an alias ra0 in /etc/modules.conf and also in /etc/modprobe.conf
I can see that the module is loaded with
lsmod | grep rt2500
rt2500 149668 0

i can also see the below :
modprobe -c|grep rt2500
alias ra0 rt2500

if i type lsusb i see:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2001:3c00 D-Link Corp. [hex]

If i tail /var/log/messages after inserting the device (it is USB nic) i see:
Mar 25 10:20:38 Slack700m kernel: usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
Mar 25 10:20:38 Slack700m udev[6440]: creating device node '/dev/usbdev1.10'

im starting to get very confused and eyes are hurting (about 10 hours now) ,..... and have literally been reading the hotplug scripts and the links /lib/modules/2.6.15/modules.usbmap etc... and making sure this device appears everywhere...
It seems to appear in the PCI module links which seems weird - the other thing is... after reading the rc.inet1 - does it have the ability to add a device called 'ra0' .... if not.. how do i set this thing up. it seems to really want to be ra0

if i type ifconfig i just get the standard lo/eth0 and eth1
this is getting very messy i think...

Maybe i wont worry about this. i have a ipw2200 card in this machine which works perfectly with my chosen linux drivers. i just know that this usb card can work as i have a slax live cd that it works perfectly on. Looks like there is a problem here when i do a lsmod... all other usb relted things are linked to usb-core... this thing seems to be rogue
rt2500 149668 0
ohci_hcd 16196 0
usbmouse 4032 0
usbhid 31968 0
uhci_hcd 26768 0
ehci_hcd 24520 0
usbcore 100676 7 usb_storage,ohci_hcd,usbmouse,usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
ipw2200 158464 0
ieee80211 26248 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 4352 1 ieee80211
firmware_class 7360 1 ipw2200

I think you need to make a directory /etc/RT2500STA
copy RT2500STA.dat from your rt2500-1.1.0-b3/Module directory

also read the README from that directory

I used a pci version of this and got it working ok, but gave up on it because it did not support master (AP) mode
but it was ok as a client of another AP

I'm not sure how different the usb version is, but I can give you more info if you would like.

tobyl

Thanks for the info... yes, i had not bothered with the .dat file as it seemed to be if you were going to use their scripts to autoconfigure the device.. I wanted to use iwconfig to list the device. currently the device is not listed if i do a 'ifconfig'.
I checked my Slax live CD at about 3am last night and found some differences.. For one the device is listed in modules.usbmap. on my laptop it has made its way into modules.pcimap.
also, when i plug it in in the live CD it gets picked up by USBCore as well as a pose to just floating around.
I think i will have a look at the live CD for clues later today as it works perfect... Even supports raw packet re-injection whilst in monitor mode ..... Eh Eh Yeeeeah
Although i have a feeling there has been some severe patching to enable this..

did you ifconfig ra0 up?

I used his build script for the madwifi driver and it works great.

Hope you have the same luck with the rt2500

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/rt2500/

yeah tried that - made no difference..
normally if i do a ifconfig it shows all the devices installed still - irrespective if they are up or down.. iwconfig will only show the up devices i think.
if i do a ifconfig ra0 up ---> error: ra0 unknown device

I think the key lies here., udev should be doing a whole lot more than creating this single node.. it does not recogise it as the device which should link to the rt2500 driver. Probably becuase it is listed in pci.modules for hotplug as a pose to usb.modules.. i am unsure how it got in there..
I will check exactly what happens (re: the above) in the slax live cd when i get a chance and post the output and then maybe someone can help?

Okay incase anyone does read this thread i have since resolved the problem....
My initial analysis (in regards to the device appearing in all the module.pcimap files for hotplug ) was well and truely the problem.... I had installed the rt2500 driver as a pose to the rt2570 driver. ---- iiidiot!
Yep - thats right, the 2500 chip is found in PCI cards and the 2570 in USB Sticks..
I went through everywhere i could find reference to 2500 and deleted all entries/saved files.. I then untar'd the rt2570 driver after downloading from serialmonkey (link above). Be sure to get the CVS Snapshot version (installs perfect and is patched for fun like packet re-injection)

#make
#make install
It added an alias into /etc/modules.conf - alias rausb0 rt2570
#modprobe rt2570
#ifconfig rausb0 up

Now assuming the device is plugged in it will appear in iwconfig and ifconfig

One thing to note however. I had read somewhere prior to noticing this myself that if you unplug the device it will crash your whole system. Sure enough it does!! Badly!! I had to do a couple of fschk after this and ended up having to re-apply all my KDE Candy...

I found that if you do the following (in order) then all is good... If you leave the card 'up' then the modprobe will fail... which i think is why my machine would even crash if i tried to reboot with the stick plugged in..
#ifconfig rausb0 down
#modprobe -r rt2570

** DLINK - DWL-122 USB Network dongle (Ralink chipset / NOT Atheros) ... Be sure to check what yours is (I pulled mine apart and had a look.... LOL! )