Using the rt2570 chipset on NSLU2

Contents

• Introduction
• Compiling the module from source
• Installing and using the module

Introduction

This page describes how I got a wireless network USB card with the rt2570 chipset working on my NSLU2. I suggest trying to compile and use such a card on a regular Linux box first. I use SlugOSLE, formerly known as DebianSlug.

Compiling the module from source

First get the rt2570 sources, Debian's module assistant and gcc-3.4

apt-get install rt2570-source
apt-get install module-assistant
apt-get install gcc-3.4

Second, you have to find the kernel headers for 2.6.16 which you can probably build yourself using OpenEmbedded. However, to save some time I grabbed a NSLU2 kernel tree from http://slugplayer.free.fr/pub/linux-source/linux-source-nslu2.tar.gz untarred it, and put it into /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-nslu2.

cd /tmp
wget http://slugplayer.free.fr/pub/linux-source/linux-source-nslu2.tar.gz 
tar -zxf linux-source-nslu2.tar.gz 
mv linux-2.6.16-tarball /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-nslu2

Now, it's time to compile the module using the module-assistant.

cd /usr/src
module-assistant --kernel-dir /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-nslu2 build rt2570

and wait.

Now, if everything went OK, you have a debian package in /usr/src which you can install using dpkg.

dpkg -i rt2570-modules-2.6.16_1.1.0+cvs20070219-2_arm.deb

Installing and using the module

Rebuild the module dependencies and install the module using modprobe.

depmod -a
modprobe rt2570

Plug in the USB network card and check the results

 
tail /var/log/messages
Apr 26 14:41:25 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new driver rt2570
Apr 26 14:44:58 localhost kernel: usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 5
Apr 26 14:44:58 localhost kernel: usb 3-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
Apr 26 14:44:59 localhost kernel: usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Apr 26 14:44:59 localhost kernel: idVendor = 0x148f, idProduct = 0x2570

Get the wireless utilities and check your setup

apt-get install wireless-tools
iwconfig

which resulted in

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      RT2500USB WLAN  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.412 GHz
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=0/100  Signal level:-120 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

So it suggests the card is working properly. Btw I still have to properly check the card is working, as at the moment I don't have access to another wireless network adaptor, so I have no means to send some bytes back and forth.

That's all folks.