Bug 548805 - Support rt3090 hardware in Fedora rawhide kernels
Summary: Support rt3090 hardware in Fedora rawhide kernels
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: rawhide
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: John W. Linville
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2009-12-18 16:54 UTC by Joel Gomberg
Modified: 2010-02-10 19:13 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-02-10 19:13:07 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
selection from /var/log/messages (21.94 KB, text/plain)
2010-01-26 19:23 UTC, Joel Gomberg
no flags Details

Description Joel Gomberg 2009-12-18 16:54:45 UTC
Description of problem:

I have an MSI Wind U210 netbook with a Ralink rt3090 pcie wireless card.  It will not work without an appropriate kernel module.  Kernel 2.6.32-0.63.rc8.git2.fc13 did include the rt3090sta module in the staging directory.  It works.  Subsequent rawhide kernels have omitted this module.  It continues to be included in the upstream stock kernel.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:

There is a working wireless connection with the module.  There is no wireless access without it.


Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Boot a kernel with the module.  Wireless works.
2.  Boot a kernel without the module.  Wireless doesn't work.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 John W. Linville 2010-01-26 16:03:35 UTC
commit e20aea64e160d5873c2aaf62cc255ea81ce000eb
Author: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier>
Date:   Tue Sep 22 20:44:33 2009 +0200

    Staging: remove no longer needed rt3090 driver
    
    rt2860 handles now all rt2860/rt3090 chipsets.
    
    Signed-off-by: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier>
    Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh>

However, I'm not too excited about enabling rt2860 either.  Have you tried rt2800pci?  If that doesn't work, please start by attaching the output of dmesg shortly after trying to enable the wireless LAN.

Comment 2 Joel Gomberg 2010-01-26 19:23:10 UTC
Created attachment 386902 [details]
selection from /var/log/messages

Here's an excerpt from /var/log/messages with the most recent rawhide kernel [PAE].  As you can see, there was a kernel oops.  This excerpt was from yesterday.  When I booted today, I didn't get an oops but networking was disabled.  There wasn't much, if any, useful info in dmesg, so I'm sending yesterday's output.

Comment 3 Joel Gomberg 2010-01-29 18:05:41 UTC
Ralink issued an updated driver for the rt3090 [2.3.1.2] this week:
http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=2

This is the readme:

2.3.1.2]
1. Fix WPAPSK and WPS

[2.3.1.1]
1. Fix Shared WEP security mode
2. Add sending wireless event "SIOCGIWSCAN"
3. Fix ioctl "SIOCSIWGENIE"
4. Support WPS IE
5. Fix the semaphore lock


[2.3.1.0]
1. Support CFG80211 of Linux Kernel 2.6.32

I am hopeful that this will fix the problem, so I'll continue to use the one kernel that works and wait for a new kernel from upstream.  

I thought that there was a separate rt3090.bin firmware file, but I didn't see it on the Ralink website.  I wonder whether there is a problem in rt2800pci calling for rt2860.bin.

Comment 4 Joel Gomberg 2010-02-09 18:59:02 UTC
There is an updated driver from Ralink [2.3.1.3]:

1.Parse the request command of essid to comply with wpa_supplicant

I compiled this driver on kernel 2.6.33-0.27.rc6.git1.fc13.i686.PAE.  After I removed [rmmod] all of the rt2x00 modules, I inserted the rt3090sta module, and it works!

Comment 5 John W. Linville 2010-02-09 20:03:42 UTC
Let me be clear -- we won't be adding any drivers to Fedora kernels that are downloaded from the vendor's website, etc.  The only thing under consideration here would be enabling the driver in drivers/staging.  For the record, I'm very hesitant to enable that driver out of quality/support concerns.

Comment 6 Joel Gomberg 2010-02-09 20:57:18 UTC
I fully understand your position and agree with it.  The rt2800pci module is based on the vendor's driver, though, and I assume the upstream developers will incorporate these changes into the kernel tree.  If you can help to expedite that process, I'd appreciate it.  If not, so be it.  In either case, I have no objection to you closing this bug.

Comment 7 John W. Linville 2010-02-10 19:13:07 UTC
The rt2x00 continues to grind forward.  And, last I had heard Ralink actually was contributing resources to that effort.  Hopefully that driver will support your hardware soon (or at least eventually).  In the meantime, I'm going to have close this -- I appreciate your understanding!


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