new to *BSD, need help with Ralink rt2500

[Pollywog]

I have been a Linux user for 10 yrs and I just started with PC-BSD.

The installation was easy with the exception of trying to get GRUB to pay nice with Linux and PC-BSD, but I got there with some help from people in the IRC channel.

Is there a howto for getting my rt2500 to work? I would prefer WPA but it is acceptable if I can only get WEP working. In Linux, WPA worked but only in Ubuntu and only after a lot of tinkering with /etc/network/interfaces. The graphical frontends were of no use there.

thanks

[antik]

I have been a Linux user for 10 yrs and I just started with PC-BSD.

The installation was easy with the exception of trying to get GRUB to pay nice with Linux and PC-BSD, but I got there with some help from people in the IRC channel.

Is there a howto for getting my rt2500 to work? I would prefer WPA but it is acceptable if I can only get WEP working. In Linux, WPA worked but only in Ubuntu and only after a lot of tinkering with /etc/network/interfaces. The graphical frontends were of no use there.

thanks

Read here about WPA.

[Athkore]

Hey there,

I was running an RT2500 a few weeks back, installed and did the basic config with no fiddling, all I had to do was set the correct things in the network control thingy. (A side note, the RT2500 reported a lot more networks than my Atheros based card... however thats reversed in Windows...)

I got WPA working perfectly too, but just to test... I was using a up to date WRT54GL with DD-WRT v23 sp2/v24b, both worked fine.

[Pollywog]

Hey there,

I got WPA working perfectly too, but just to test... I was using a up to date WRT54GL with DD-WRT v23 sp2/v24b, both worked fine.

The network control part of KDE does not show the Ralink rt2500, but it did show in Ubuntu and Freespire/Linspire.

ifconfig a does show the wifi interface as ral0 in PC-BSD

Are you sure you got WPA to work using a graphical configurator? I thought this was not possible in KDE. I had WPA working in kubuntu but I had to edit the /etc/network/interfaces file directly.

[Pollywog]

I finally got it working, but not with any graphical configurator.
The only documentation that applied to my situation is the material at
http://damien.bergamini.free.fr/ral/ral-freebsd.html

I first used the command wpa_passphrase <ssid> <passphrase> and sent the output to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and following that I edited the file so it looks like this:

ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

network={
ssid="myssid"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="myencryptedpassphrasefromabovecommand"
}

# end file

Upon executing this, I must open another window and execute 'dhclient ral0' in order to actually do anything AND I must disable the ethernet interface in KDE's control center > network

I am going to try putting this stuff in a script to make it easier.

[Pollywog]

I am going to try putting this stuff in a script to make it easier.

I was informed that PC-BSD has a separate network configurator from KDE's and I had looked for one but not found it. Now I know about it and it works great, so none of the editing of wpa_supplicant.conf was even necessary.

[Bjorg]

Originally Posted by Pollywog

I am going to try putting this stuff in a script to make it easier.

I was informed that PC-BSD has a separate network configurator from KDE's and I had looked for one but not found it. Now I know about it and it works great, so none of the editing of wpa_supplicant.conf was even necessary.

Please, tell me how to access that network configurator, I also have a Ralink wifi card.

[Pollywog]

Originally Posted by Pollywog

Originally Posted by Pollywog I am going to try putting this stuff in a script to make it easier. I was informed that PC-BSD has a separate network configurator from KDE's and I had looked for one but not found it. Now I know about it and it works great, so none of the editing of wpa_supplicant.conf was even necessary.

Please, tell me how to access that network configurator, I also have a Ralink wifi card.

I am now using FreeBSD and I don't recall where the menu item is in PC-BSD, but I believe I found it from the Internet menu. I am having difficulty getting wifi to work in FreeBSD. I only managed to get WPA to work and only from the command line.

[Oko]

Problem is that same wireless card has been produced with the different chip set as well. You can find this on Ubuntu knowledge database.

But on 6.2 Stable and PC-BSD 1.4 which is going to be released soon the same wi is recognized out of box. (I had the same problem and I am using the thing now. I tested also pc-bsd 1.4 and it had no troubles) ifconfig_ral0="DHCP" in rc.conf is enough for thing to work.