Wireless 802.11b/g networks

Scribbles · May 10, 2006, 2:39am

I was wondering, what it would take(if its possible) for me to connect to an 802.11b/g network(and the internet through that really) with a standard pci card, using a desktop pc.

I would be connecting to a Wireless Belkin Pre-N router that works with both 802.11b and 802.11g.

Software? Compatible hardware? Does such a thing exist?

EDIT:

Ok, by doing a search for drivers on BeBits I fould there is a wireless driver for Wireless cards based on the Ralink rt2500 chipset, also I’ve found a list of cards (supposedly) based on that chipset(http://ralink.rapla.net/).

Has anyone had any luck with any of the cards listed, and have they found any of these cards on a site other than the manufacturers site(which doesn’t actually sell the product)? Also I would need to get one from the USA or Canada(for practical reasons).

Besides that any tips you could throw my way would be helpful, as I’m still new to the BeOS/Haiku world, and I still have no idea about most things.

EDIT 2:

Well after many hours of searching I seem to have found a card that is listed as having the rt2500 chipset the “MSI PC54G2” for about US$23+shipping at Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833158110), it seems some of the Linux guys got it working on a few different flavours of linux acording to the reviews(and confirmed that it uses the rt2500 chipset) so I have hope that this could be the soloution on the hardware side. Anyway if there arn’t any objections I think I’ll order it tomarrow, and then wait until it comes(three day shipping) and go from there.

On the software/Operating system side I still have no idea what I’m doing though, besides (hopefully) getting a card that will work with a BeOS driver I found on BeBits, any helping words of wisdom out there?

EDIT 3:

I have just recieved the wireless card and have confirmed it is in working order(It is currently working under Windows 2000, it was a bit difficult because of a very specific error, but I found a workaround if anyone cares to ask for it). I have also confirmed that the chip is an rt2560, which hopefully means it should work. Anyway, I now plan on attempting to install to BeOS R5 pe. If I’m sucessful I’ll be updating soon (from inside BeOS) .

EDIT 4:

I’m still working on it, this driver doesn’t have very good install directions, can anyone make sence of them? If someone can understand them, I could use directions that say “put file ‘rt25xx’ in directory -->(full path)”

Quote:

PCI

Open the driver folder. Drag the file rt25xx in the folder named drop driver here.

Create a link in the folder /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/dev/net to the driver named /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/rt25xx.

Go to parent folder.

Open the add-on folder. Drag the file rt25xx in the folder named drop add-on here.

Go to parent folder.

Open the configuration folder. Drag the file rt25xx in the folder named drop configuration file here.

Reboot. After reboot, you will see a new device in the Network preferences panel.

Setup your device and restart networking.

Scribbles · May 17, 2006, 2:18am

(shameless bump to get people to read my edits that have been added in the past few days)

phoudoin · May 17, 2006, 10:26am

Scribbles wrote:

I have just recieved the wireless card and have confirmed it is in working order(It is currently working under Windows 2000, it was a bit difficult because of a very specific error, but I found a workaround if anyone cares to ask for it). I have also confirmed that the chip is an rt2560, which hopefully means it should work.

Oh man, I'm sorry I didn't catch your post before you buy this card. Because I've follow the same path two weeks ago and, as rt25xx BeBits Talkbacks recent comments would have show you, the BeOS driver don't support (yet?) the newest rt2560 chip family.

Well, at least now we’re two users interested in rt2560 support. Maybe we could lobbying Patrick successfully?

Scribbles · May 17, 2006, 4:03pm

No problem not catching the post, I didn’t know the exact rt25xx chip until I got the card.

The exact chip model I have is: rt2560f
Your chip is rt2561st right?

I still want to try the driver though just to see the results, but I’m confused by Patricks directions. I’m still new to BeOS operating systems, so directions with lots of details are good.

I did have one random idea about drivers; would comparing the Linux driver for the rt2500 to the Linux driver for the rt2560, reveal any information(such as what the differences are) that might help someone (such as Patrick) write a BeOS driver for the rt2560?

I’ll be willing to help you in anyway to get a driver working on this chipset though.

j_freeman · May 17, 2006, 6:27pm

You guys could open a bounty on HaikuBounties.org for extending the current driver to support this newer chipset. Not sure if anything will come of it, but it’ll let developers know someone’s interested.

gravy1 · May 17, 2006, 11:59pm

Scribles:

if you still want to install the driver, it is very simple. (Although it confused me for a while too.)

The instructions make sense if you know that the "drop driver here" is a link to the correct location, so by dropping it on there it will go to the correct place.

If you really want to do it manually you could Get Info on the "drop driver here" to show you the full path.

On a sidenote I could never get my card, a Gigabyte GN-WPKG to work either.

–gravy

Scribbles · May 18, 2006, 1:26am

I’m still not sure where the link you’re refering to is exactly, I’m still pretty new to it all(BeOS). The directions I have look like the ones on Patrick’s site: http://patrick.lafarguette.free.fr/en/beos/rt25xx/ .

And just so we can keep a running reference what model chip is on your card gravy_ ?

gravy1 · May 18, 2006, 11:50am

If you open the /boot/home/…/rt25xx-0.0.6-x86/driver/ directory you will see three files:
rt25xx
rt25xx_cb
drop driver here

“Drop driver here” should be underlined. That means it is a link. You will find that it is linked to /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin .

You can drag the appropriate one into it. (rt25xx_cb for cardbus I assume.)

The rt25xx within the configuration directory should go to
/boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers

And if you are using net server you will need the add-on which goes into
/boot/beos/system/add-ons/net_server

-edit-
Forgot you also have to make a link as described in the instructions. Something like:

ln -s /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/rt25xx /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/dev/net

Quote:

And just so we can keep a running reference what model chip is on your card gravy_ ?

I think its actually rt2500. It has the right device ids anyway.

–gravy

umccullough · May 18, 2006, 8:24pm

gravy_ wrote:

If you open the /boot/home/.../rt25xx-0.0.6-x86/driver/ directory you will see three files: rt25xx rt25xx_cb drop driver here
“Drop driver here” should be underlined. That means it is a link. You will find that it is linked to /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin .

You can drag the appropriate one into it. (rt25xx_cb for cardbus I assume.)

The rt25xx within the configuration directory should go to
/boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers

And if you are using net server you will need the add-on which goes into
/boot/beos/system/add-ons/net_server

-edit-
Forgot you also have to make a link as described in the instructions. Something like:

ln -s /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/rt25xx /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers/dev/net

Quote:
And just so we can keep a running reference what model chip is on your card gravy_ ?

I think its actually rt2500. It has the right device ids anyway.
–gravy

If you’re using BONE/Dano/Zeta, the net_server add-on won’t be of much use, and you can probably skip that step.

Scribbles · May 18, 2006, 11:09pm

Thanks for the detailed instructions gravy_ , my directions were missing any links to the directories .

If you happen to get a look at your card at some point, post what number is on the main chip, maybe we can convince someone to write a driver if were all on something similar like rt256x.

umccullough, yeah I don’t think thats needed for thoose ones, but I’m on plain R5, so no saved steps for me.

gravy1 · May 21, 2006, 2:07pm

Ok, I’ve finally had a look and it is an rt2560f. Looks like we’re all in the same boat. :?

Xeon3D · November 29, 2009, 12:54am

I have that exact card, but unfortunately it won’t work with Haiku. Will try on Zeta later

Jace · March 27, 2010, 3:34am

My ASUS WiDi-G R1.33 has that same exact chip (RT2560F). it’s years old. any progress on drivers for this since these posts were made?

humdinger · March 27, 2010, 6:14am

Hi Jace!

There’s a ralink firmware and a rt2560 file that gets jammed into the ralink wlan driver. So, I guess your chances are pretty good. Just give it a try. Note that there’s no encryption at the moment.

Regards,
Humdinger

Jace · March 27, 2010, 6:41am

thanks for the reply Humdinger

are there any instructions anywhere on what to do, or is it part of the installation and should “just work?” my only reason for even considering it is that i’ve ridiculous wire and router clutter here on this roughly setup Haiku machine… and i’m curious

thanks

-jace

humdinger · March 27, 2010, 7:02am

It’s been a while since I checked wireless with my iprowifi3945.
With a newer nightly image you should be good to go. No need to execute “install-wifi-firmwares.sh” as your ralink firmware doesn’t suffer from licencing madness.
Just disable encryption of your wifi-router, boot up and e.g. launch NetworkStatus to see if it’s recognized. I think you’ll have to set both wired and wifi interfaces to DHCP. You may have to wait some time for a connection to come up.
If everything worked, you can activate MAC filtering in your router to have at least a minimum of security.

Regards,
Humdinger