moblin, rt2860, and unhappiness

moblin, rt2860, and unhappiness

[jack craig]

Hi linux-wireless,

This is my first posting, so please pardon me if I break any rule.

A bit a background, last spring in a bout of unemployment, i wanted to find a new development direction.

i had been working with a company providing wireless products (Danger), and wanted to continue that
direction using  mobile linux as a platform.

I subscribed to the moblin developers list, bought an Asus EeePC 1000 with xandros installed and began
my development project.

I chose to keep the xandros os in the netbook as its wireless was the first working wireless
i've had. i booted the various moblin pre-beta releases via the thumbdrive and wasnt too
worried when the wireless didnt work on the moblin os; after all it was pre-beta.

as the xandros wireless worked, i felt confident that the good folks at Intel would make my netbook
wireless work by the time beta rolled around.

it was my error in assuming an Intel cpu included a Intel wireless chipset, instead i found i had an rt2860.

as beta came and went with still no wireless joy, i started probing deeper and found the ralink
rt2860 support wasnt going to be covered in the moblin project work.

so here i am with a netbook that cant get to the net with the os of my choice. Much unhappiness!

i have learned that the driver source is available and i plan to track that down.

i have also been toying with the idea of surgery; putting a Intel wireless chipset in the eeepc,
but the only article I've found on that topic is a bit much for a software only geek.

I like the eeepc and want to use it with wireless.

i figure my best case is to find a way to get the ralink driver working with the moblin os,
but at least one person has failed at that attempt to far.

a fall back position is to go with a fedora os where i could get the driver working there
(if it doesn't already).

so, finally, my query to this august group; given this sob story, what is your wisdom on the topic?

is my goal to get the rt2860 working on moblin a gesture in futility?

does it make sense to bail and go on to FC? i use FC for my desktop and work so i prefer it over ubuntu ,...

Suggestions? tia, jackc...

-- 
    jack craig
       jackc@LinuxLightHouse.com
          831-684-1375 (Office)
             831-596-6924 (cell)
                IM: jackcraigaptos (AIM)
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Re: moblin, rt2860, and unhappiness

[Ivo van Doorn]

Hi,

> i figure my best case is to find a way to get the ralink driver working with the moblin os,
> but at least one person has failed at that attempt to far.
> 
> a fall back position is to go with a fedora os where i could get the driver working there
> (if it doesn't already).
> 
> so, finally, my query to this august group; given this sob story, what is your wisdom on the topic?

The rt2800pci driver has recently been merged into wireless-testing git tree, that driver isn't working
perfectly yet, but that is the driver where all development effort should go into.

You can find the rt2800pci driver in the
drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00 folder.

> is my goal to get the rt2860 working on moblin a gesture in futility?

Absolutely not. :)

> does it make sense to bail and go on to FC? i use FC for my desktop and work so i prefer it over ubuntu ,...

This is not a distribution problem, but simply a lack of a good driver in the kernel itself.

Ivo

Re: moblin, rt2860, and unhappiness

[Gábor Stefanik]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 7:41 PM, jack craig <jackc@linuxlighthouse.com> wrote:
> Hi linux-wireless,
>
> This is my first posting, so please pardon me if I break any rule.
>
> A bit a background, last spring in a bout of unemployment, i wanted to find
> a new development direction.
>
> i had been working with a company providing wireless products (Danger), and
> wanted to continue that
> direction using  mobile linux as a platform.
>
> I subscribed to the moblin developers list, bought an Asus EeePC 1000 with
> xandros installed and began
> my development project.
>
> I chose to keep the xandros os in the netbook as its wireless was the first
> working wireless
> i've had. i booted the various moblin pre-beta releases via the thumbdrive
> and wasnt too
> worried when the wireless didnt work on the moblin os; after all it was
> pre-beta.
>
> as the xandros wireless worked, i felt confident that the good folks at
> Intel would make my netbook
> wireless work by the time beta rolled around.
>
> it was my error in assuming an Intel cpu included a Intel wireless chipset,
> instead i found i had an rt2860.
>
> as beta came and went with still no wireless joy, i started probing deeper
> and found the ralink
> rt2860 support wasnt going to be covered in the moblin project work.
>
> so here i am with a netbook that cant get to the net with the os of my
> choice. Much unhappiness!
>
> i have learned that the driver source is available and i plan to track that
> down.
>
> i have also been toying with the idea of surgery; putting a Intel wireless
> chipset in the eeepc,
> but the only article I've found on that topic is a bit much for a software
> only geek.

Actually, it's not tricky at all - you will need to get an Intel
3945/4965/5100/5150/5300/5350 PCI-Express Mini Card (or Half-Mini Card
if your Eee PC has that one - compare the card in your system with the
cards on http://embeddedsystemnews.com/images/embedded/pciexpressminihalfminicards.jpg),
and swap the Ralink card in your machine with the Intel card. It
should be plug-and-play. (And it's not limited to Intel - you can use
any PCIE Mini Card.) You can find plenty of these cards on eBay, such
as http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250512964837.

>
> I like the eeepc and want to use it with wireless.
>
> i figure my best case is to find a way to get the ralink driver working with
> the moblin os,
> but at least one person has failed at that attempt to far.
>
> a fall back position is to go with a fedora os where i could get the driver
> working there
> (if it doesn't already).
>
> so, finally, my query to this august group; given this sob story, what is
> your wisdom on the topic?
>
> is my goal to get the rt2860 working on moblin a gesture in futility?
>
> does it make sense to bail and go on to FC? i use FC for my desktop and work
> so i prefer it over ubuntu ,...
>
> Suggestions? tia, jackc...
>
> --
>   jack craig
>      jackc@LinuxLightHouse.com
>         831-684-1375 (Office)
>            831-596-6924 (cell)
>               IM: jackcraigaptos (AIM)
> _________________________________
> This email has been ClamScanned !
>    www.LinuxLightHouse.com
> --
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