WLAN: Linksys WUSB54G - does it work?

Forum: Networking
Topic: WLAN: Linksys WUSB54G - does it work?
started by: astefan

Posted by astefan on Sep. 13 2006,12:24

Hi,

currently I am looking for a smart Linux distribution and currently I prefer DSL. Before I start I need an info:

Does the Linksys WUSB54G work with DSL on a simple way (without recompiling kernal or something like that)? The WLAN chipset is Ralink RT2500.

Does anybody got it to work with DSL?

Thanks in advance!

Stefan

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 13 2006,13:32

I think there are many posts about the rt2500 already...

Posted by astefan on Sep. 13 2006,14:44

Hi,

I tried the search functionality before I posted, of course. I used "Search Keywords" = "RT2500" and "Forums" = "All open forums" and got no results. Sorry.

Would please help me or give me a hint?

Thanks in advance
Stefan

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 13 2006,14:49

Please see
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....uestion >

Yea, you have to do all those extra clicks - can get annoying if you're searching a lot.

Posted by Winter Knight on Sep. 13 2006,21:32

hatsrule, I don't think it is a good idea to rag on people who are new. DSL forums and wiki aren't exactly standard, up to date, or friendly. That's why DSL keeps losing newbies. astefan probably has searched forums before, and figured that he knew how.

astefan, hats was referring to the fact that in order to search, you have to change a field at the bottom of the search form, every time. By default, it says "search last month only", but that is rarely useful. You have to manually change it to "From the beginning" every single time you want to do a search.

As for your card. Have you bought it yet? If you haven't, don't. Countless people have a hard time with it. I don't think it even works with 2.4 kernels. DSL has a 2.4 kernel.

If you already have it, you might want to consider DSL-N. DSL-N is in 0.1RC4 (not yet beta), but is fairly stable. DSL-N has a 2.6.12 kernel. Another useful link is:
< http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List >
This is a bunch of cards that work with with ndiswrapper, and how to do it. ndiswrapper, in case you don't know, is a linux wireless driver that wraps around the windows driver that came with your card. It is usually easier to get working than the native drivers, but is less CPU efficient, and doesn't have all the functions, like xframes mode.

I assume you have Linksys WUSB54Gv4. That is the one with rt2500. Linksys WUSB54Gv1 uses prismgt. I have one, and it works out of the box with DSL-N, ndiswrapper, and latest Linksys drivers from website. Linksys is known for using linux for its own ends, but not giving back to the linux community any more than legally required, meaning they don't support linux, provide drivers, or tell anyone when they change chipsets.

Good luck.

Posted by Photorat77 on Sep. 20 2006,14:32

Thanks for the info Winter Knight, I too have been troubled with getting a WUSB54G v 4 to work with DSL. Now I know it won't! Do you think anyone is working on getting kernel 2.4 to work with these devices?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 20 2006,16:40

I believe the main problem (from what I remember) was that the driver for the 2.4 kernel did not support SMP kernels, in which DSL uses. So then people got around this by using ndiswrapper, but nothing is like running things natively. Afaik some users have compiled their own kernel and modules without smp support, and have succeeded - no one has yet to create a dsl remaster/package though.

Sorry if my post seemed to throw some users off, but imo there were too many posts about this before :P Maybe the right info should be added somewhere (wiki?) as a note about this chipset's quirks.

Posted by Winter Knight on Oct. 02 2006,12:38

Actually, I didn't say it won't work. I said that I didn't think it would. I just based my thoughts on the forum search that I did, where I could find nothing but unresolved problems. There were dozens of hits tho, and I didn't check them all. Maybe one of them had a solution.

hats, as for newbies keep asking the same questions, that's what newbies do. Good news! The wiki just opened. Since you know more about this problem than I do, hats, why don't you write a wiki page?