wifi woes

[huffpuff]

Hmmm, trouble here getting the edimax ew-7711uan usb wifi adapter driver compiled.

This adapter needs the ralink rt3070 [now rebadged as rt3370] the source for which I downloaded from the ralinktech support page.

Having installed the compiling metapackage for tc all went well until I hit an error which related to the lack of the Linux headers being installed. Once remedied the compiling went ahead without error except that when I went to insert the driver module with 'insmod' it yelped something about 'unknown symbols'...

At this point the trail went cold and intensive googling has only deepened the mystery.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Rich]

Hi huffpuff
This may or may not solve your problem but I believe you are supposed to use
modprobe, not insmod.

[tinypoodle]

And doing a

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sudo depmod -a first, after having installed the drivers to their path.

Edit: A proper path would probably be

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ls -l /usr/local/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
(where `uname -r`is the name of your kernel)

[Juanito]

Once remedied the compiling went ahead without error except that when I went to insert the driver module with 'insmod' it

insmod would not install any depencies your module might have whereas modprobe would - the missing symbols error might be due to a missing dependent module

[huffpuff]

OK thnx

think I will re-compile but wondered if the makefile should not be tweaked? The relevant bit is:

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ifeq ($(PLATFORM),PC)
# Linux 2.6
LINUX_SRC = /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
# Linux 2.4 Change to your local setting
#LINUX_SRC = /usr/src/linux-2.4
LINUX_SRC_MODULE = /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
CROSS_COMPILE =
endif
just wondered if the 'usr/local' prefix should be added somewhere...

If not is it simply a matter of copying over the compiled driver module [rt3070sta.ko] to the path:

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/usr/local/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
then running 'depmod -a' and then 'modprobe'?

I have also copied the firmware file to /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA as instructed in the readme file.

[huffpuff]

Nope re-compiled & copied the resulting driver to:

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/lib/modules/2.6.33.3-tinycore/kernel/drivers/net/usb
ran depmod -a to update modprobe.dep & then modprobe [driver] & still got

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modprobe: can't load module rt3070sta (kernel/drivers/net/usb/rt3070sta.ko): unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter
I'm stumped. Might have to put my Edimax up for sale....

[Rich]

Hi huffpuff
What does dmesg say after you try loading the module?

[huffpuff]

Hi Rich

Yup this is the gubbins of dmesg that refers to the driver:

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nvidia 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[SGRU] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
nvidia 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
vgaarb: device changed decodes: PCI:0000:03:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module  260.19.21  Thu Nov  4 20:24:24 PDT 2010
HDA Intel 0000:00:08.0: power state changed by ACPI to D0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LAZA] enabled at IRQ 22
HDA Intel 0000:00:08.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LAZA] -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
hda_intel: Disable MSI for Nvidia chipset
HDA Intel 0000:00:08.0: setting latency timer to 64
hda_codec: ALC662 rev1: BIOS auto-probing.
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_alloc_urb
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_free_urb
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_register_driver
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_put_dev
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_get_dev
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_submit_urb
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_control_msg
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_deregister
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_kill_urb
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_buffer_free
rt3070sta: Unknown symbol usb_buffer_alloc


[Rich]

Sorry, I meant modprobe from a terminal and then check the last entries from dmesg.

[huffpuff]

yes Rich I did modprobe from a terminal and that is the last part of dmesg but fear ye not I have just tracked the prob to a missing reference to the driver 'license' in 'usb_main_dev.c' and also to the firmware file being misnamed. What are those ralink tech chaps playing at?

Now if a wicd built around python 2.7 is imminent I would be a happy chappy indeed.

BTW how does one get the driver module to persist across reboots?? Hmmm...

[Rich]

Hi huffpuff
My mistake, the dmesg looked like it was in the middle of booting. So I guess you
need a MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") statement somewhere in the source. You need to
add a line to /etc/modprobe.conf but I'll let one of the smarter guys chime in with
the specifics.

[Rich]

Are you compiling the 2.2.1.0 or the 2.5.0.1 version?

[tinypoodle]

BTW how does one get the driver module to persist across reboots?? Hmmm...

You could squash it incl. all parent dirs with mksquashfs and name it e.g. rt3370.tcz

[huffpuff]

Sorry Rich it's about 2:00am where I am and I'm fading out but to answer your query it is ver 2.5.0.1 & after pasting in the license thingy & renaming the dat file it has loaded into the kernel without so much as a burp. Thnx for your input though.

Tinypoodle [you're a big dog as far as I'm concerned] I'll give that a whirl. Thought! Would it be sensible to do likewise with the dat file for the firmware that resides in /etc/Wireless/RT3070STA/RT3070STA.dat as currently I restore it using the .filetool.lst? I'm thinking it needs to be around about the same time in the boot cycle...

[tinypoodle]

Either could work..
But you could as well put both in one extension, if you plan to always use them in combination.