Linux Compatible Wireless Devices

Extract from the README on the Linux Emporium Ralink Support CD

Note that Driver builds are NOT required for UBUNTU Hardy Heron 8.04 or Fedora Core 9!!

CD Contents

The Linux Emporium Ralink CD contains:

• this README
• A tarfile, le_ralink_install.tar containing drivers and install scripts for the cards which we supply.
• A directory containing a driver and install script for the usb sticks with Ubuntu Gutsy
• A directory containing drivers and installation scripts for all devices with Fedora 8
• A directory, serialmonkey, containing the serialmonkey project drivers, which may be helpful to some people.
• A problem solving guide.

General Info

The current Ralink wireless chipsets are the RT2561 (for PCI and PCMCIA cards) and the RT2571 (for USB dongles). Thanks to the work of the serialmonkey project there is good driver support for these chipsets, and the drivers are incorporated in kernels 2.6.22 and above. With 2.6.22 configuration of the network interface using Network Manager can be problematic, while it is straight-forward with 2.6.24 kernels.

All the Edimax devices we sell will work out of the box with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and Fedora Core 9 and support WEP and WPA/WPA2 Personal encryption.

This README contains instructions for using Network Manager with the latest distributions followed by instructions on building drivers and configuring the interface with older distributions.

Driver Builds For Older Distributions

The scripts we provide have been tested on Debian Etch with kernel 2.6.18, Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10, Fiesty 7.04, 6.10 and 6.06, openSUSE 10.2 and Fedora 8, Fedora 7 and Fedora Core 6, and using the cards which we supply, with the following results:

RT73 (USB): reliable operation on all distributions tested. A more recent version of the serialmonkey drivers is used with Ubuntu 7.10. RT61 (PCI/PCMCIA): reliable operation on all distributions . Note that the RT61 will work “out of the box” with Ubuntu Fiesty, see the notes on page 5, and with Ubuntu 7.10.