[Arm-netbook] New kernel and installer images with wireless support available

Frans Pop elendil at planet.nl
Wed Mar 31 16:46:57 BST 2010


I've managed to integrate the wireless driver source that Oliver found in 
our kernel source. I've updated the kernel and installer images available 
on alioth to include wireless support [0].

The integration of the driver in the kernel is not perfect, but IMO more 
than good enough. I've removed a lot of cruft from their make system and 
also made some changes [1] to avoid unnecessary spamming of the kernel 
log.

At 8.7MB the driver is humongous. I don't really know why. If somebody 
would like to look into it, that would be appreciated.

I've been using the wireless quite a bit today and it seems to be working 
perfectly.

For some reason the driver requires a config file. I disliked the original 
name and location, so I've changed it to '/etc/network/rt2870sta.cfg'.
I'm currently using a very minimal config, which works fine (replace the 
country code with your own...):

<snip>
#The word "Default" must not be removed
Default
CountryCode=NL
</snip>

A full example config and documentation can be found in the kernel repo:
http://git.debian.org/?p=arm-netbook/arm-netbook.git;a=tree;f=drivers/net/wireless/rt3070/doc;h=81f941ebc59b9794e76ae6ca6c53239a64644a2d;hb=aed68b538bf87695569e107972d67f2645f459cd

If someone knows of good reasons add certain configuration settings, please 
share!

Note that Debian Installer currently only supports WEP authentication, not 
WPA. The wireless is shown in D-I, but I've not tested making a connection 
(as my AP is configured to use WPA).
The installer includes a basic config file (all default settings; country 
line commented out!) and should copy that to the target system. It should 
also install the packages wireless-tools and wpasupplicant.

Cheers,
FJP

[0] Main reason for me to integrate it was to avoid having to build the 
driver separately when we update the kernel.
[1] See the commit history in git.



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