WiFi/rt73 - Debian Wiki

RT73Driver

*Note to learn about rt2x00 drivers please look at bottom to get more information. You may find another driver that will support your NIC.

Hardware

If you are using the kernel 2.6.x or later, chances are that the following hardware (but not limited to) will work using the open source RT73 driver.

Asus WL-167g
Sitecom WL113 v1-002
GW-US54HP
D-Link DWL-G122 (new rev)
D-Link DWL-G122 (new rev)
Digitus DN-7003GR (VPR 1.0)
Belkin ?F5D7050 Ver 3
Edimax EW-7318USg
Hawking HWUG1
Linksys WUSB54 x

Again the driver is not limited to just these NICs.

Setting up for off-line install

If you have a current internet access skip to the internet install section.

First thing you are going to need to do is download the RT73 driver on another computer and put it on a flash drive (or some other medium) to transfer it to your Debian machine.

You can download the cvs at

http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz

After you get into Debian you need to copy it to /lib/firmware then unzip it. *Make sure you have root access

  cp /path/to/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz /lib/firmware
  cd /lib/firmware
  tar -xvzf rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz

If you don't have gcc installed you need to make sure you have the cdrom in your sources and do

aptitude install gcc

You can now skip past the internet part

If you have internet access

If you have internet access you can download it directly from Debian using wget

  wget http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz -O /usr/src/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz
  cd /lib/firmware
  tar -xvzf rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz

Check if you have gcc installed

gcc --version

If you don't get a version you need to install it

aptitude install gcc

Install needed dependencies

You need to install needed dependencies before you can build the driver

aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Build

Next you need to cd to the Module directory in the files you extracted

cd /usr/src/rt73-cvs-yyyymmddhh/Module

If you are unsure what the yyymmddhh is then use

ls -d rt73*

This should tell you the correct directory.

After you are in the Module directory you need to us

make

In some kernels you may get the following warning

!!! WARNING: Module file much too big (>1MB)
!!! Check your kernel settings or use 'strip'

In that case run the command

strip -S rt73.ko

Finally you can install the driver

make install

configuring the driver

You will need to make sure that you have any network manager disabled. You will then need to manually configure your internet

#Load Driver
ifconfig wlan0 down
modprobe -v rt73
#Configure internet

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_NETWORK_NAME_HERE
iwconfig wlan0 key YOUR_WEP_KEY_HERE_OR_"off"_FOR_NO_KEY
dhclient wlan0

You should now be able to connect to the internet. If you are unable to connect to the internet please go back and make sure you followed all the steps correctly.

Setting up auto connect during boot

You need to edit the network/interfaces file to connect to the internet on boot.

gksu gedit /etc/network/interfaces (if you are using Ubuntu)
kdesu kate /etc/network/interfaces (if you are using Kubuntu)

Inside you need to add the following

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp

        pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up
        pre-up iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_ESSID
        pre-up iwconfig wlan0 key WEP_KEY_OR_"OFF"_IF_YOU_HAVE_NONE

If you have WPA you need to use the following instead

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set EncrypType=TKIP
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set WPAPSK="YOUR_WPA_PSK_KEY"
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set SSID="YOUR_SSID"
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set NetworkType=Infra

If you have a static ip address, then you should try the following

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address STATIC_IP_ADDRESS
netmask 255.255.255.0
network ROUTER_IP
gateway ROUTER_IP
        pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up
        pre-up iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_ESSID
        pre-up iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
## add any additional WPA information, etc if needed

Rebuilding for new kernel

If you upgrade kernels you will need to re-build the driver. To do so you can do the following bellow

cd /usr/src/rt73-cvs-yyyymmddhh/Module
make clean
make
ifdown wlan0
modprobe -rv rt73
make install
modprobe -v rt73
ifup wlan0

More information about RT2x00 drivers

To get more information about RT2x00 drivers please visit http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/

WiFirt73