Edimax 7128g on amd64

[selig]

Hello, I have bought this Wi-fi card (which I now see as a big mistake), but I cannot get it working in Gentoo. I thought it should have a rt2500 chipset, but it apparently does not and it does not work with rt2500 drivers. Then I found out it needs the rt61 kernel module. I downloaded the source package from the manufacturer's site, compiled on gentoo-sources-2.6.14-r7 (I have tried also 2.6.15-something but 2.6.15 kernels have severe problems on my machine). Compilation went OK, but when I inserted the module, it just produced a kernel OOPS and froze my whole network subsystem.
I thought bad luck, what about ndiswrapper? It is masked, but compiled fine. Did not work with 32-bit nor 64-bit win XP drivers though - kernel OOPS while inserting the ndiswrapper module. (tried the 1.2-r1 version)
Is there any way of getting this card to work in Gentoo? Should I wait for the developers to write a new driver for it? Should I throw it into the trash, because anything else is pointless?
Thank you for any advice.

[skion]

Hi there,

I successfully compiled and used the old drivers with this card on a PPC machine a while back. It does have the rt2500 chipset as far as i know...

Two things that may be of help...

- The original rt2500 drivers do not work with SMP, and might also have problems on amd64.
- You could try the new rt2x00 beta drivers from: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=5

I don't know what the status of those is as of today, haven't tried them myself yet... but anyway, the good thing is that the manufacturer open-sourced the drivers, so improvements can be expected in the future...

Good luck,
_________________
- Skion

[selig]

I will try these too, but I googled the output from lspci -v and according to what I found out that my card has an rt61 chipset. rt61pci is supposed to be fixed in the CVS, so I might as well try that. Thanks for the advice.

[skion]

We're both right about the chipset indeed... man, i hate it when they change chipset without changing the model number... should be illegal
_________________
- Skion

[selig]

I know. Before buying the card I have read about how it has a rt2500 chipset and how the drivers are open-source and supported etc. Looked good, they are not even masked for amd64 in portage. Then I bought the card and discovered about the rt61 chipset. What a disappointment. I will try the beta drivers anyway - maybe they will work, thanks.

[selig]

Hmm, the CVS tarball contains a rt61pci module, which loads fine, still is not working. I guess the firmware is not being loaded properly, but I do not know where to put the *.bin files in Gentoo. The readme suggested /lib/firmware, but there is no such directory and when I created it and put it there it still did not work. However I feel I am getting close, maybe this is going to work at all if someone helps me with the firmware bit :)

[selig]

I enabled debug in the module and looks like the firmware gets loaded OK now. But the card still is not working - I mean I can set the ESSID, but it does not associate with an the AP. Also when using the startup network scripts, they fail on configuring the wireless interface. Any ideas?

[bartden]

I wonder if anyone got the Edimax EW7128g (rt61 module) working with Gentoo amd64,

i tried the RaLink driver , the gentoo sources, and ndiswrapper
I have SMP and PREEMPT disabled,
sometimes the kernel panics, sometimes the module unloads,

i adjusted the rtmp_data.c file, uncommenting the RELEASE_NDIS_PACKET(... , after recompiling, it works, but after a while my connection just dies
and i cant send anymore package's

i installed the windows 64 bit driver with ndiswrapper, worked fine, i modprobed ndiswrapper, wlan0 shows up, when i do iwlist wlan0 scan
it associates with my AP, but when i look at link quality its at 0 , and i cant do dhcpcd wlan0

any help ?

Thx

[madhusker]

anyone?