Ralink RT2500/RT2560 devices

This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on the Ralink RT2500 (non-USB) chipset on Debian systems.

Contents

Drivers

The Ralink RT2500 802.11g wireless LAN chipset is supported by three native drivers:

rt2500 (Legacy driver)
- Released by Ralink under the GPL.
- Not generally recommended for use.
rt2500 (Enhanced legacy driver)
- Previously maintained by the rt2x00 project.
- Source previously packaged in rt2500-source, removed from Debian to resolve bug 563429.
rt2500pci (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 (rt2500pci). No firmware from userspace is required.

The rt2500pci driver is included in the mainline Linux kernel since version 2.6.24. It is included as a module in Debian kernel images.

Install the wireless-tools package:
```
aptitude install wireless-tools
```
The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via:
```
modprobe rt2500pci
```
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.

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo rt2500pci in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-30) kernel images.