ASUS Wifi card not usable

1st Official Post

    I tried to use an ASUS PCE-N53 PCI-e (x1) card, but it does not appear to be 'enabled' (can't connect/doesn't show any wifi networkds), though it's detected by the O/S.

    lspci:

    1f:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT5592 PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

    Is 'this' related ?

    dmesg:

    [ 7.510104] wl: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
    [ 7.510107] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.

    • Official Post
    Quote from yubby

    ASUS PCE-N53 PCI-e

    Try to see if the x1 card is fully recognized and working in an Ubuntu Live session. If so, then it is a driver problem.

    You can then also provide the dmesg listing from the Ubuntu session for comparison.

    FYI: please always provide/link the full dmesg listing, not just 1 or 2 puzzles pieces. Just in case... :)

    • Official Post

    The lspci output only proves the hardware powered on, it has no bearing on driver support for the hardware. The (broadcom) wl module contains a mixed GPL/proprietary license which taints the license status of the kernel (no longer pure GPL). It's irrelevant.

    What driver is that card supposed to use?

    Quote from chewitt

    The lspci output only proves the hardware powered on, it has no bearing on driver support for the hardware. The (broadcom) wl module contains a mixed GPL/proprietary license which taints the license status of the kernel (no longer pure GPL). It's irrelevant.

    What driver is that card supposed to use?

    Ah, the 'wl' module 'is' for the Broadcom gig wired interface that's also present...

    • Official Post

    Hit eBay and find a cheap USB dongle with an Atheros ath9k chipset. It'll work reliably (ath9k is well written) and you won't have to attempt custom builds with random drivers from github. Third party (out of tree) drivers are a pain in the rear to work with so it's not something we'd think about adding to the distro.

    Well, I did just that, though it's a different 'internal' PCI-e x1 card, which I bought on Ebay for $13 total...

    Same chipset vendor, but different 'chip'... (why the '5592' isn't supported, but the '5392' is, is interesting)

    1f:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT5392 PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

    [ 7.538219] ieee80211 phy0: rt2x00_set_rt: Info - RT chipset 5392, rev 0223 detected
    [ 7.543014] ieee80211 phy0: rt2x00_set_rf: Info - RF chipset 5392 detected
    [ 7.544754] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'

    [ 9.586219] ieee80211 phy0: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Loading firmware file 'rt2860.bin'
    [ 9.588453] ieee80211 phy0: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Firmware detected - version: 0.40

    I can 'see' my neighbor's AT&T routers now...

    • Official Post

    Chip vendors breed chips like rabbits and some do the silicon equivalent of copy/paste to recombine features in new and different ways. In some cases that results in an existing driver needing minor evolution to support the new extra thing that was added or moved. In other cases it needs a completely new driver and then you're dependent on the vendors own handiwork which is usually dreadful and based on some ancient kernel used as their corporate development (non)standard, or the Linux community makes something which is normally great quality but takes a few years to appear because it all hinges on a single individual working up the motivation or need to write the driver.

    So 5592 probably bears no technical relationship to 5392 beyond the marketing people naming stuff similarly..