RaLink RT2860

[Thulemanden]

I found 2 distroes that support this wireless.

Gentoo had a module build for importing it and MeeGo supports it by default.

So I wonder if someone was able to produce a driver for PC_BSD please?

Some sources:

http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/dr...A_V2.1.2.0.tgz released on 05/21/2009.

It also is reported working on several eee notebooks.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/inde...t-1213069.html

"We had a massive struggle on a Shuttle X50 to connect the RT2860. After combing numerous threads we tried the following and it worked. Good luck.

Check out the following link: https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/interne...iswrapper.html

This explains how to use windows-based drivers and convert them to Linux.

Find the rt2860.inf windows driver and follow the instructions in the above link.

We followed some of the thoughts presented here:
http://tuxtweaks.com/2009/01/ubuntu-on-the-msi-wind/"

[Zplay]

Hello


I'm sorry but the chipset RT2860 isn't working on freebsd / PC-BSD.

I had a eee pc with this chipset and I tried everything to get it working, without results...


It works well on OpenBSD or Linux, but not on FreeBSD.

Someone was trying to port it from OpenBSD, but it was crashing the computer when I was loading the module, maybe this module is working better now (I haven't tried since few months).


edit : I just found it ! Try this, it seems to be working now
http://repo.or.cz/w/ralink_drivers.git

[Thulemanden]

ok, thanks for the speak. There is now better hope someone will be able to fix it.

It's used on many small notebooks and these will often be a second machine for many and I imagine they would want a lean, secure, dependable and free OS on it, so why not PC-BSD - but the wireless is essnetial on notebooks.

[Fatmice]

Please report back on whether this is working so I can add to the list of supported hardware.

[Thulemanden]

I'll respond once I get PC-BSD installed on the notebook along existing MeeGo and MSXP or via an USB flash stick as live. Might take a good while.

[bsdaddict]

I've downloaded the file from http://repo.or.cz/w/ralink_drivers.git and got this :

[beni@bsdaddict /usr/home/beni/temp/rt2860_fbsd8]$ ls -l
total 334
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 243 Jun 15 20:35 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 174217 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 5272 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_amrr.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 2232 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_amrr.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1749 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_debug.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 3114 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_eeprom.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 13397 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_io.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 2534 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_io.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1570 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_led.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1291 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_led.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 14327 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_read_eeprom.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1145 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_read_eeprom.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 14960 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_reg.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 10780 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_rf.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1192 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_rf.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 2423 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_rxdesc.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 2357 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_rxwi.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 10064 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_softc.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 1644 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_txdesc.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 2932 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_txwi.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 beni beni 51944 Jun 15 20:35 rt2860_ucode.h
[beni@bsdaddict /usr/home/beni/temp/rt2860_fbsd8]$

How do I proceed from here ? The Makefile is not executable and ./configure or ./make give nothing but an error.

So I downloaded the netr28x.inf and .sys files for ndisgen (files from HP for the original Lite-on wifi driver that seems to be using this rt2860 chipset). That made me an netr28x_sys.ko file that loads :

[beni@bsdaddict /usr/home/beni/temp/rt2860_fbsd8]$ kldstat -vvv | grep net
136 pci/ata_netcell
38 1 0xffffffff8206c000 ce0f0 netr28x_sys.ko (/boot/modules/netr28x_sys.ko)
53 pci/ndis_netr28x_sys
52 cardbus/ndis_netr28x_sys
51 pccard/ndis_netr28x_sys
50 uhub/ndis_netr28x_sys
[beni@bsdaddict /usr/home/beni/temp/rt2860_fbsd8]$

But ifconfig does not show a ndis or other device now. So the wifi device is not yet recognized it seems.

How do i proceed from here please ?

[Alcide]

Hej Thulemand

I know that this thread is somewhat lifeless, but I should tell you that I have RT2860 driving my RT2790 based card. This should also work for your card too, as RT2860 is a catch-all for this series from Ralink.

check http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2
To see which group your chipset falls under.

Here's how I did it:

I installed git in my ports: /usr/ports/devel/git

Now I collected the rt2860 driver from a czech site into my user directory:

~/construction/ralink% git clone git://repo.or.cz/ralink_drivers/rt2860.freebsd8.git

The this will create a directory called rt2860_freebsd8, that I changed to... and created the module.

% cd rt2860_freebsd8
% make
% su -
...
# cp (path to module)/rt2860_freebsd8/rt2860.ko /boot/modules
# chmod 555 /boot/modules/rt2860.ko

The next step is to edit the /boot/loader.conf file by adding this line:
rt2860_load="YES"

# Load Wireless Support
rt2860_load="YES"

I tried to run this command:

# ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev rt28600

but it borked with some complaint: ifconfig: SIOCIFCREATE2: Invalid argument.

I rebooted regardless. And yet again there was still no life in the wifi driver.
but running ifconfig -a disclosed that there was now a rt28600 device and a wlan0 device as well.

Also this command pciconf (the same as lspci in Linux, but more detailed)

[root@tesla] ~# pciconf -lvcb

(...)
bge0@pci0:4:0:0:        class=0x020000 card=0x002614c0 chip=0x171314e4 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'Broadcom NetLink (TM) Fast Ethernet (BCM5906m)'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
    bar   [10] = type Memory, range 64, base 0xf0000000, size 65536, enabled
    cap 01[48] = powerspec 3  supports D0 D3  current D0
    cap 03[50] = VPD
    cap 09[58] = vendor (length 120)
    cap 05[e8] = MSI supports 1 message, 64 bit enabled with 1 message
    cap 10[d0] = PCI-Express 1 endpoint max data 128(128) link x1(x1)
ecap 0001[100] = AER 1 0 fatal 1 non-fatal 1 corrected
ecap 0002[13c] = VC 1 max VC0
ecap 0003[160] = Serial 1 001b38fffed05038
rt28600@pci0:12:0:0:    class=0x028000 card=0x27901814 chip=0x07811814 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Ralink Technology, Corp.'
    device     = 'Wireless (RT2860/RT2890)'
    class      = network
    bar   [10] = type Memory, range 32, base 0xf8200000, size 65536, enabled
    cap 01[40] = powerspec 2  supports D0 D3  current D0
    cap 05[50] = MSI supports 32 messages, 64 bit 
    cap 10[70] = PCI-Express 1 endpoint max data 128(128) link x1(x1)
ecap 0001[100] = AER 1 0 fatal 1 non-fatal 1 corrected

(...)

so it showed up. However, still no life in it. But:

#ifconfig rt28600 down
#ifconfig rt28600 up

...waked my driver up. And it works fine.

Then in system settings I could zero in on my home network and saved it as a profile.

I should mention that I had seen some conflicting information about the placement of this driver. Some say /boot/modules, others say it should be in /boot/kernel along with its .ko.symbols file. So none the less just to be on the safe side, I placed the rt2860.ko and rt2860.ko.symbols in /boot/kernel.
Perhaps a helpful reader could shed some light on why there is a discrepency and which is the correct directory for these modules.

Thulemand, I hope you get your eeepc's wireless up and on the net with this info.
Good luck.

alcide

please check these as references to how I discovered the mentioned procedure:

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=7010
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=13749

[Thulemanden]

Thanks Alcide - now I have something to work on :-)

[IslandWolf]

I followed the steps in this post with the exception that I had to download the file into a Windows folder and then access it from within PC-BSD because the ASUS PCE-N13 wireless NIC isn't working for me yet in PC-BSD 8.2. Then I performed tar -xzvf on it.

Now my PC-BSD OS sees the NIC as an RT28600 device, but the ipconfig -a command returns "No carrier" as part of the information it provides. Has anyone encountered this before? If so, what can I do to turn on the radio on this card? Like I said, it works just great with my MS Windows 7 Professional 64Bit installation on this home-built machine.

My search for posts on this "No carrier" condition returned no usable results.

The file names for the Windows driver for this card are not those mentioned in an earlier post. There are no .INF files. There are "netr28x.sys", "RaCoInst.dat", and "RaCoInstx.dll". So I would not know how to use NDIS to make them work with my installation of PC-BSD 8.2. Besides, Alcide's instructions seem to have gotten the card seen and accessed. I just need to know how to establish a carrier.

The wireless router to which I am seeking to connect is in another room across the house, so connectivity with an Ethernet cable is out of the question for everyday use. And since the card works with Windows, I am convinced the problem is with PC-BSD's configuration on my computer and not with the card itself.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Richard McCord

[IslandWolf]

Problem solved using information from another forum (it was pretty much just a matter of doing things a wee bit differently).