Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Followup on Ubuntu, Wireless, and WPA

Well, my victory over non-functioning wireless adaptors and Ubuntu 10.04 was short lived. An install of Ubuntu updates this morning included the kernel update to 2.6.32 which replaces the default shipping Ubuntu 10.04 kernel. This of course broke my work using a compiled patched driver for the RT2860 chipset. Strangely, running through my driver install instructions does not work for me with kernel 2.6.32? I did some more searching and found this post and a link to a test kernel (2.6.33) that supposedly addresses the problem.

I downloaded the 2.6.33 test kernel to a thumb drive and installed it on my Ubuntu machine. I rebooted and don’t you know it works and I’m back online. Unfortunately, I note that it is only connecting at “G” (e.g. 54 mbs) speed. My card is capable of “N” speeds and with the original kernel and my compiled driver I could connect with a link speed of 135 mbs.

Oh well, I guess I should be thankful I can connect at all!

It is hard to understand the thought process that goes on in the Ubuntu organization that allows this type of thing (i.e. broken wifi drivers) to be acceptable. I think this post sums up the frustration pretty well.

In my case, instead of whining, I tried to do something about it and help others as well. It would be great if the powers that be (Shuttleworth?) at Ubuntu would take notice. It’s a pity because it mars Ubuntu 10.04 which is otherwise a stunning accomplishment.

2 comments:

AmateurDev said...

I tried this and I couldn't connect on either kernel.Do I have to redo the process on the new kernel? lspci -k returns that my wifi device is using the rt2860 driver and the rt2860sta module. Is this right?

Anonymous said...

Chris,
Awesome writeups on the rt2860. I followed one elsewhere when I was on 9.10, and it was BRUTAL. Looking at your two posts, I went from 54Mb/s up to 270Mb/s in five minutes. Can't thank you enough.