RT73 / RT2x00 Driver

The rt2x00 drivers is maintained by http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/. An incomplete list of [#supported-devices Supported Devices] is listed at the bottom of this page.

Note: If you are using Debian testing (Lenny), follow the [#procedure procedure] at the bottom of this page to set up your rt73 wireless device.

Installation (using module-assistant)

We will use module-assistant to build the package etch/rt2x00-source (or rt73-source).

The package description is : RT2x00 wireless network drivers source ?BR This package provides the source code of the Linux drivers for wireless network cards using the Ralink RT2x00 chips. It is a complete rewrite of the RT2400/RT2500/RT2570 drivers, it uses the standard iw* configuration tools, and it aims to be integrated in the kernel tree.?BRIn order to compile the kernel modules you need the kernel sources (or the kernel-headers for the kernel-image packages from Debian). For compile instructions look into [http://sysinf0.klabs.be/usr/share/doc/rt2x00-source/README.Debian?f=view;dist=etch;component=main;arch=i386;pkg=rt2x00-source;ver=0cvs20060928-1 /usr/share/doc/rt2x00-source/README.Debian] or simply use the module-assistant utility. ?BR WARNING: This driver is still experimental, it only works for a few cards. You will need a 2.6.17 or later kernel to use it.

Open a terminal as root
Add the contrib and [:Synaptic#repository:non-free] component
Then run

apt-get install module-assistant
module-assistant prepare
module-assistant update
module-assistant build rt2x00

You can the copy the package you just build, named /usr/src/rt2x00-modules-2.6.18****.deb, to the target computer, then install it with :

dpkg -i /tmp/path/to/rt2x00-modules-2.6.18*deb

Manual compilation from CVS

This procedure is not recommended

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

WiFirt73