Member Avatar for Mushy-pea

Hello everyone. I'm trying to install a Ralink tech. wireless PCI network card on netBSD 3.1. I've looked at a netBSD online manual page and it says there is a driver for this chipset in the distribution I'm using (namely ral(4)). However, after booting up with the card physically installed and running dmesg I find this entry in the log:

Ralink Tachnologies device 0x030 at pci0, function 20 not configured

The part that is troubling me is the absence of a device name in /dev (i.e. no ral0 or other such thing here, as you can see). Does anyone know why this might be and how I can fix this issue? I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get a driver to work with it if it doesn't have a device name. Any advice appriciated.

Steven.

  • 3 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 263 Views
  • 2 Years Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by johny09

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer: that dmesg line means the kernel saw a Ralink PCI device but no driver attached, so there’s nothing for userland to name (you won’t see a network interface as a /dev file — use ifconfig to list interfaces). Common causes are: the kernel you booted doesn’t include the ral driver, the driver is present but the card’s PCI vendor/device IDs aren’t recognized, or the card requires a different/ newer driver or a newer NetBSD release. (docstore.mik.ua)

Quick diagnostics to run on the NetBSD box (capture the exact vendor/product numbers and the driver state):

pcictl pci0 list -N
pcictl pci0 list
pcictl pci0 dump -b <bus> -d <device> -f <function>
config -x /netbsd | grep -i ral
ifconfig -a
dmesg | grep -i 'ral\|Ralink\|not configured'

pcictl will show the numeric vendor/product and, with -N, whether a driver is attached; config -x extracts the running kernel’s built-in config so you can confirm whether device ral was compiled in. If you prefer, boot a Linux live image and run lspci -nn to get the same PCI IDs. ()

How to interpret results and next steps

  • If pcictl … -N shows no driver and config -x does not list ral, either rebuild a kernel with device ral or upgrade to a NetBSD release that includes the needed support. The ral driver existed in NetBSD 3.0, but additional Ralink variants were added in later releases; upgrading can be the simplest path. ()
  • If the driver is present in the kernel but the device still shows “not configured”, post the exact vendor:device IDs (e.g. many RT2500 cards appear as 0x1814:0x0201) — a missing ID means the driver probe doesn’t claim that board and either the driver needs a trivial ID addition or the card uses an unsupported variant. Use the pci.ids list to map IDs to chipset names. (kernel.googlesource.com)
  • If dmesg later reports microcode/firmware errors, follow the ral manpage firmware guidance; note that original RT2500 adapters themselves normally do not require separate firmware. ()

This directly addresses the situation you described, . Windows/.INF advice (as posted by ) won’t help on NetBSD; ’s reply appears to be off-topic. If you post the output of the pcictl dump and the exact dmesg lines, it will be possible to give a precise next action (kernel patch, rebuild, or upgrade).

Member Avatar for SWBNME

I know this thread is old. Anyway, the way to install the drivers for the ralink rt2500 is to download drivers (RT2500_Wireless_LAN_Card.zip.......37.9 MB) from driverguide.com so you can have the inf files. Once you have the inf files it's ok to uninstall the drivers from device manager and the application from programs and features and restart your computer. Once you are promped to install the drvice when your computer restarts, brouse to the folder where the drivers are located and follow the steps to install it. The computer will automatically install the drivers. After the drivers are installed, all that has to be done is to connect to the wireless card by configuring it in the network and sharing center. To be sure that the wireless connection is working open a web browser and go to a website. This wireless card does not bypass any wep entries you need to enter for a secured connection.

If you want to install the wireless assistant from the manafacturing website, it might work with the installed drivers, but I don't want to try my luck and ruin my connection and have to start over again. So, I did not try that. I also did not try to simply use the exe setup file to install the driver and wireless assistant.

Member Avatar for johny09

if you want to know more details i could gave here..just click here

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.