Ralink RT2501/RT2561, RT2600/RT2661 (RT61) devices
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Ralink RT2501 (non-USB) and RT2600 chipsets on Debian systems.
Contents
Drivers
The Ralink RT2501 (non-USB) and RT2600 wireless LAN chipsets are supported by three native drivers:
rt61 (Legacy driver)
- Released by Ralink under the GPL.
- Not generally recommended for use.
- rt61 (Enhanced legacy driver)
- Previously maintained by the rt2x00 project.
rt61pci (Next-generation driver)
- The recommended driver to use.
- Included in the mainline kernel starting from 2.6.24.
Source previously packaged in rt2x00-source, removed from Debian to resolve bug 474189.
The next-generation driver is maintained by the rt2x00 project. Supported devices are listed at the end of this page.
This page only details installation of the next-generation driver (rt61pci). It requires non-free firmware for device operation, which can be provided by the firmware-ralink package.
Installation
The rt61pci driver is included in the mainline kernel since 2.6.24. It is included as a module in Debian kernel images.
Lenny, Squeeze
Using Etch? Skip to the Etch section.
As drivers from the rt2x00 project are included in the mainline kernel, the rt61pci driver is present on your system. Firmware is required to be installed prior to driver operation:
Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list for your Debian version. For example:
# Debian Lenny/5.0 deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free
or
# Debian Squeeze (testing) deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages, then install the firmware-ralink and wireless-tools packages:
aptitude update aptitude install firmware-ralink wireless-tools
The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via:
modprobe rt61pci
If not already performed, connect the device to your system.Verify your device has an available interface:
iwconfig
Raise the interface to activate the radio, for example:
ifconfig wlan0 up
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Troubleshooting
Examine the kernel ring buffer (dmesg(1)) to verify the required firmware files are being loaded by the driver. Lack of firmware is the usual reason for the "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory" error message.
Ensure the firmware-ralink package is installed.
Etch with 2.6.18 kernel
Although an etch/rt2x00-source package is available, this version is considered experimental and only supports a small number of devices. The devices which are supported are likely to encounter issues.
It is highly recommended to use an EtchAndAHalf kernel image, which will provide your system with an updated rt61pci driver included as part of the kernel. You will not need to use etch/rt2x00-source.
Install an EtchAndAHalf kernel image (apt-cache search linux-image-2.6- | grep etchnhalf and install a package appropriate for your system), restart your system to boot using this kernel, then follow the Etch with 2.6.24 kernel procedure below.
Etch with 2.6.24 kernel
As drivers from the rt2x00 project are included in the mainline kernel, the rt61pci driver is present on your system. Firmware is required to be installed prior to driver operation:
Install the etch/wireless-tools package:
aptitude update aptitude install wireless-tools
Add the Debian Backports repository to /etc/apt/sources.list, also including the "non-free" component. For example:
# Backported packages for Debian Etch deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages and install the etch-backports/debian-backports-keyring package:
aptitude update aptitude -t etch-backports install debian-backports-keyring
As your system does not yet have the GnuPG archive key of the backports.org repository installed, you will be asked to confirm installation of a package from an untrusted repository. Enter Yes when prompted.
Install the etch-backports/firmware-ralink package:
aptitude update aptitude -t etch-backports install firmware-ralink
The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via:
modprobe rt61pci
If not already performed, connect the device to your system.Verify your device has an available interface:
iwconfig
Raise the interface to activate the radio, for example:
ifconfig wlan0 up
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Troubleshooting
Examine the kernel ring buffer (dmesg(1)) to verify the required firmware files are being loaded by the driver. Lack of firmware is the usual reason for the "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory" error message.
Ensure the etch-backports/firmware-ralink package is installed.
Supported Devices
The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo rt61pci on Lenny.
PCI: 1814:0301 RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI PCI: 1814:0302 RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g PCI: 1814:0401 RaLink RT2600 802.11 MIMO
See Also
External Links
http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/ - rt2x00 project homepage.