Ralink RT2870 (USB) Ubuntu Intrepid HOWTO

 

This howto is an instruction on howto get the rt2870 Wifi 802.11abgn chipset to work with Intrepid Ibex.

 

It was tested on two ENGENIUS EUB-9701 EXT - EUB9701X2 which contains the rt2870 chipset made by Ralink.

 

The driver from Ralink needs a patch to work with kernels newer than 2.6.24. The patch was made by a user on these forums and posted on Launchpad. Thank god for that. I was getting mad with ndiswrapper. Not anymore!

Install build-essential (This may not be needed so try the next steps without build-essential first).

 

sudo apt-get install build-essential

 

Create a directory in for example your home directory to keep all the files.

 

cd ~/

mkdir rt2870

cd rt2870

 

Now retrieve the driver

 

wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2

 

Extract the compressed driver directory and files.

 

tar xvfj 2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2

 

Enter the directory and edit the config.mk file so that the driver will support NetworkManager

 

nano os/linux/config.mk

 

Change the following part

 

# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=n 

 

# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Magang

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=n

 

to this

 

# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y 

 

# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Maganger

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y

 

Compile and install. 

 

sudo make

sudo make install

 

Edit the Ralink settings file to your liking. 

 

sudo nano /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA/RT2870STA.dat 

  

This is what mine looks like without the passwords and accesspoint. 

 

#The word of "Default" must not be removed

Default

CountryRegion=5

CountryRegionABand=7

CountryCode=SE

ChannelGeography=1

SSID=*REMOVED*

NetworkType=Infra

WirelessMode=5

Channel=1

BeaconPeriod=100

TxPower=100

BGProtection=0

TxPreamble=0

RTSThreshold=2347

FragThreshold=2346

TxBurst=1

PktAggregate=0

WmmCapable=1

AckPolicy=0;0;0;0

AuthMode=WPA

EncrypType=TKIP

WPAPSK=*REMOVED*

DefaultKeyID=1

Key1Type=0

Key1Str=

Key2Type=0

Key2Str=

Key3Type=0

Key3Str=

Key4Type=0

Key4Str=

PSMode=CAM

FastRoaming=0

RoamThreshold=70

APSDCapable=0

APSDAC=0;0;0;0

HT_RDG=1

HT_EXTCHA=0

HT_OpMode=1

HT_MpduDensity=4

HT_BW=1

HT_BADecline=0

HT_AutoBA=1

HT_BADecline=0

HT_AMSDU=1

HT_BAWinSize=64

HT_GI=1

HT_MCS=33

HT_MIMOPSMode=3

IEEE80211H=0

TGnWifiTest=0

WirelessEvent=0

 

I think the important part of my changes is this. 

 

AuthMode=WPA  

 

This was what I had to change to make the driver work with NetworkManager.

 

Now make the driver load at bootup

  

sudo nano /etc/modules

 

and add this line to the the file.

  

alias ra0 rt2870sta  

 

My /etc/modules looks like this. 

 

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.

#

# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded

# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

fuse

lp

sbp2

#ndiswrapper

uinput

alias ra0 rt2870sta

# Added for Nero Linux device access

sg

 

Add an ugly fix to make the ra0 interface come up during each boot. There must be a better way which I hope someone reading this knows of. 

 

sudo nano /etc/init.d/rc.local 

 

and add these lines to the end of the file

 

ifconfig ra0 inet up

/etc/init.d/NetworkManager restart

 

Reboot and it should work. It did for me.