This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
The rt2x00 project
Wireless cards based on RaLink's chipsets are very well-suited for Linux computers. RaLink actively supports Linux and the Open Source community by releasing the code for a driver and configuration utility. Based on that code, a re-developed driver for these cards is hosted at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com. This driver (although still in beta) is working good and is quite stable. It is different from other modern wireless drivers in that it has built-in WPA support. It is not dependent on a third-party tool like wpa_supplicant. The rt2x00 driver will eventually replace the current rt2400, rt2500 and rt2570 drivers.
Getting the software
I maintain a Slackware package for the rt2500 driver (54Mbit wireless cards) here. Install a package for your release of Slackware (the version number should correspond with your running kernel) or build your own package using the SlackBuild script and the other files found in that location. An easy way to download all source files in one command is
lftp -c "open http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/rt2500/; mirror build"
When this command completes, you will end up with a subdirectory called “build” in your current directory. Build the package as follows:
cd build sh rt2500.SlackBuild
THe resulting package will be created in the /tmp directory and can be installed with (for example)
installpkg /tmp/rt2500-1.1.0.b4_2.6.13-i486-1.tgz
Loading and configuring the rt2500 driver
After installing the software, a simple
/sbin/modprobe rt2500
is enough to load the driver. A reboot would do the same, if you have enabled hotplug. Without hotplug, you can add the line /sbin/modprobe rt2500 to the end of either
/etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice
or
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules
so that the driver will load upon boot.
This will create an network device called ra0 . Slackware since release 10.2 can handle network devices that are not called ethX and you can have a look at the sample configuration below. For older releases of Slackware, you can have a look at my updated network scripts that are written as a drop-in replacement for your current rc.inet1 and/or rc.wireless scripts (if you upgrade, upgrade them both!).
Sample configuration
Taken from my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf, your configuration for a rt2x00 driven card could look like this (several parameter values are specific to your own network and you should edit where appropriate):
# Config information for ra0: IFNAME[5]="ra0" IPADDR[5]="" NETMASK[5]="" USE_DHCP[5]="yes" DHCP_HOSTNAME[5]="icculus" WLAN_ESSID[5]=MYWAVES WLAN_MODE[5]=Managed WLAN_CHANNEL[5]="auto" WLAN_IWPRIV[5]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234"
The last line (WLAN_IWPRIV[5]) is the necessary configuration for WPA. The 64-character string '12345…..901234' I copied in there should be replaced by your Access Point's 64-character hexadecimal WPA key.
IWPRIV in before Slackware 12.0 was like this: WLAN_IWPRIV[5]=“AuthMode=WPAPSK EncrypType=TKIP WPAPSK=the64characterkey” Starting with Slackware 12.0, you should use the new syntax
WLAN_IWPRIV[5]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=the64characterkey"
