Ralink RT2870 vs RTL8187B

[DaveH]

Hello everybody

my first post ... been around for a while ... in and out, since UUCP/UUPC and x25

thanks for great OS

Some of my experience with BT and Belkin Components F6D4050 N150 Enhanced Wireless Network Adapter v1000 [Ralink RT2870]

I have Toshiba Satellite 310L with Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter which works just great in everything.

After few days ... and nights cant say the same about Ralink RT2870, but I'm totally new to BT. Some fix maybe near, but I did not getting it.

OK here is what I have done;

root@bt:~# lsusb

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 050d:935a Belkin Components F6D4050 N150 Enhanced Wireless Network Adapter v1000 [Ralink RT2870]
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter

detected great!!


apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

DONE

lsmod

snd_rawmidi            14559  1 snd_seq_midi
mac80211              207141  1 rtl8187
sdhci_pci               5894  0
video                  15550  1 i915
sdhci                  13909  1 sdhci_pci
output                  1296  1 video
snd_seq_midi_event      4312  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
cfg80211              120768  2 rtl8187,mac80211
mmc_core               47209  2 mmc_block,sdhci
eeprom_93cx6             972  1 rtl8187
psmouse                32227  0
snd_seq                39714  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
led_class               1787  2 rtl8187,sdhci
serio_raw               3352  0

apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink

firmware-ralink is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

blacklist mac80211
blacklist rtl8187

reboot

and

modprobe rt2800usb

root@bt:~# lsmod |grep rt
rt2800usb               9208  0
rt2800lib              24480  1 rt2800usb
rt2x00usb               6595  2 rt2800usb,rt2800lib
rt2x00lib              30502  2 rt2800lib,rt2x00usb
mac80211              207141  2 rt2x00usb,rt2x00lib
cfg80211              120768  2 rt2x00lib,mac80211
parport_pc             18091  0
parport                24431  2 parport_pc,lp
rtc_cmos                7838  0
rtc_core               11455  1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib                 1534  1 rtc_core
led_class               1787  2 rt2x00lib,sdhci
iTCO_vendor_support     1441  1 iTCO_wdt
agpgart                22961  3 drm,intel_agp

in log

usbcore: registered new interface driver rt2800usb
usb 2-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5

no such string as

rt2800usb 1-1: firmware: requesting rt2870.bin

in airmon-ng

no wlan0, no card, no driver - empty.

Interface Chipset Driver


OK.

Installing compat wireless

root@bt:~# apt-get install linux-source

Kernel Headers in BT4 R2 already there

checking IW

iw --version
iw version 0.9.18

already there

checking firmware

apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink

already OK

that is much nicer in BT4 R2 compare to BT4 R1, everything already installed.

after testing few compats I found that one, which installs fine without any errors

compat-wireless-2011-02-12-p.tar.bz2

make unload

rtl8187 unloaded

modprobe rt2800usb

perfect no errors and nothing works

Interface Chipset Driver

EMPTY

after reboot sometime frozen completely after hardware interpretation: HALD

then reinstall BT and all same again. did it few time already.
any suggestions appreciated. not that really I care much about that card, but more about process itself.

cheers!!

[DaveH]

one more observation to add

as result of installing compat-wireless - patched rtl8187 driver which comes with BT, been replaced with unpatched driver from compat-wireless and my card stack on one negative channel. there is a patch on aircarck for that problem. Instead of reinstalling compat I reinstalled BT.

[raymon432]

Is there any chance that the new Backtrack version to be released will support the Belkin F6D4050 N150 wireless card,version 1000,Ralink rt2870 chipset, out of the box?
So that the necessary drivers comes with the iso of the new version?


For now I only use Backtrack 4 R2 as a Live cd and other cards I have tested as Netgear vg111 v3 as well as Alfa Awus050Nh works out of the box.

Regards
raymon