Slackware 10

My initial install on Slackware was a little unusual, as I had compiled the 2.4.27 vanalla kernel for use with my Puppy Linux install. I had specifically installed Slackware, to use as a base system to compile kernel modules for my Puppy Linux installation. Slackware 10 uses the 2.4.26 kernel, so this was considered an experimental custom install.  Once again, the ndiswrapper failed to load the Windows XP or 2000 Rt2500 drivers in Slackware, despite using a 2.4 kernel, rather than 2.6, as in my other install attempts.

I then opted to use the Ralink drivers located at the Sourceforge RT2400 Project Page. Interestingly, the readme for the drivers gave install directions for the original Ralink drivers, but I was able to modify the confusing directions to my install. After downloading the  rt2500-1.0.0 driver for my card, I uncompressed the gz file, entered the Modules directory and ran, as root user;

make config

make all

The Ralink driver also comes with a graphical utility that helps set up your wireless card. This utility was helpful in allowing me to quickly look at my settings and connections to see if they were working properly. Nice touch. I never could get used to setting up my card using iwconfig at the command line. Once I set up the card with my essid and wep key, the utility placed a file called RT2500STA.conf in my /etc/wireless directory that calls up the settings when the card is brought up.

Loading the Rt2500 driver uses an ra0 interface, as seen in iwconfig, not the expected wlan0 identification that Linux users are used to working with for wireless.  The drivers come with two files load and unload, which are supposed to activate and deactivate the wireless card. I could not get the load file to run in Slackware, so I made my own script from the file's contents, naming it wgo. I placed this file in my home directory and made a desktop icon to run the script. The contents of the script are outlined below;

#!/bin/bash
clear
echo "starting ra0..."
/sbin/insmod /home/danleff/wireless/rt2500/Module/rt2500.o
/sbin/ifconfig ra0 inet 192.168.1.234 up
/sbin/route add default gw 192.168.1.1
dhcpcd ra0
echo "bringing down eth0"
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 down
sleep 5
exit

When setting up this script, keep in mind that it needs to be run as root user, so if you set up an icon to run it, as I did, make sure to set the permissions correctly  and check  the box "run as different user (root)" under advanced settings in the icon manager.
 
Notice the line "/sbin/ifconfig eth0 down" in the script Being a newbie to Slackware, I have not yet found a way to disable eth0 (my wired lan card) , so I added this line to bring down the nic wired card to test my system. Obviously, if you don't need to do this, the line can be omitted.

I also found that insmod had to be run from within the install directory /rt2500/Modules, where it resides. Apparently the rt2500.o module is not placed in /lib/modules/<kernel version> directory, where you would normally expect to find kernel modules.

TO DO

The last touch will be to set up the driver to load automatically at boot. Once I get more comfortable with using Slackware and find how to accomplish this, I will post an update.


References:

1. Sourceforge RT2400 Project Page

2. RTL8180 under Ndiswrapper on Slackware 10
 
3. Slackware installing Linksys WPM54G with ndsiwrapper-11

Page 3: The WMP54g using ndiswrapper