wlan0 device not present FC5 x86_64 (resolved)

[Toad]

> > Unable to get ndiswrapper to work on 64 bit kernel.  Works a treat
> on
> > smp kernels.
> > 
> > lspci shows hardware present.
> >       05:06.0 Network controller: RaLink Ralink RT2500 802.11G
> > Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
> 
> Why are you using ndiswrapper in the first place? Use the native
> rt2500 driver.
> 
> http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm
> (The version provided by the manufacturer under the GPL.)

> http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Downloads
> (The version forked off by the Free Software community. There's 3
> versions: 
> rt2500 Beta, rt2500 CVS or the still experimental rt2x00 CVS.)

The rt2500-cvs-2006050713 version from 

http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Downloads

built and installed without error on both 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5-x86_64 and
2.6.16-1.2111_FC5-x86_64 kernels.  However, modprobe refused to load the
module, even with specific path and after running depmod -a.  insmod
loaded the module and it plays just fine.  The odd thing is it loads
fine on boot so do not understand why modprobe from command line doesn't
work.  Same result both kernels.

Did not try RT2500-Linux-STA-1.4.6.4 from
	http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

I was unsuccessful with that driver on the 32 bit *2111_FC5 kernel as
well as CentOS 4.3 64 bit kernels.  The CVS driver did work for me with
32 bit FC5 kernel, hence my first choice for 64 bit.

> Depending on the version you pick, you may need 2 fixes:
> * if you're getting an undefined reference to verify_area, add this to
> the 
> affected source file(s):
> static inline int __deprecated verify_area(int type, const void __user
> * addr, 
> unsigned long size)
> {
>         return access_ok(type,addr,size) ? 0 : -EFAULT;
> }
> * if you're getting an error on a line looking like this:
>         .owner =        THIS_MODULE,
> just comment it out or delete it, .owner is no longer used in the
> 2.6.16 
> kernel.
> Other than that, the module should compile just fine against the
> standard 
> kernel. Let's hope it is 64-bit clean...
> 
>         Kevin Kofler

Thanks to Kevin Kofler in particular for his sage advice.

Cheers,
bj

Fedora Core 5, Linux 2.6.16-1.2111_FC5smp athlon 15:52:48 up 25 min, 3
users, load average: 0.06, 0.04, 0.10