DSL Not Finding Wireless Netcard

Forum: Networking
Topic: DSL Not Finding Wireless Netcard
started by: polo_step

Posted by polo_step on Nov. 26 2005,03:37

I tried DSL tonight and it loaded fine, but when I tried to set up wireless with the DSL program for this, it says that it did not find a wireless network card.

I have an integral RaLink 2500 card in this notebook computer.

It is my understanding that this is a Linux-supported device.

Any suggestions?

Posted by roberts on Nov. 26 2005,05:50

The rt2500 is not part of DSL-2.0. You have two choices:

Use ndiswrapper, you'll have to boot your Windows system and download and install the Ralink Windows drivers for the RT2500 if you don't already have it. Then go back to DSL, and click /mnt/hda1 (or whichever is your Windows partition) and navigate to "Program Files" and find the Win2k version of the ra2500 ".inf" file. To install it use the DSL control panel, the ndiswrapper gui

Your second option is to compile the native Linux driver for your DSL system.
The complete kernel sources are provided to do this. The first option is much easier.

Posted by Anonymous on Nov. 26 2005,06:06

@Polostep: I'm having a similiar issue, i ing hate this RALink chipset >_<;;, getting it running is always a hassle.

Do i need to have an actual windows partition, or can i just download the .inf file into linux and then use it? Or does it need to touch a windows system to work?

Posted by adssse on Nov. 26 2005,15:27

I believe that you can just download the .inf file and use it. For instance I downloaded and put it on my usb drive so that I will have it with me when I run live-cd. I than just mount my usb drive and am able to use it.

Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 26 2005,19:12

Usually there is a .sys file that is paired up with the .inf file

Make sure that you save both of these files on your USB drive or other storage device.

Posted by polo_step on Nov. 26 2005,21:18

If you're going to use ndiswrapper, I think you can just e-mail yourself the *.INF files as atachments and get them from there when you're in Linux...if you can get online without the wireless.

Anyway, I don't think using the ndiswrapper option will allow you to set up the RaLink wireless to use the WPA/2 needed in the real world these days. Possibly you can, but I don't know how.

Apparently, setting it up with the actual Linux drivers and a little doinking around will give you full functionality. I don't know how to do that either, but I've been researching the basic problem.