How to get Puppy 2.16 working with a Hawking HWP54G Rev. R

[rdchin]

How to get Puppy 2.16 working with a Hawking HWP54G Revision R wireless PCI network adapter.

Puppy will automatically load the RT2500 driver into the kernel and create a network interface ra0 for this wireless card. Unfortunately, the default driver will not work with this card (at least not for WPA/PSK encryption when I tried it).

1. First remove or unload this driver from the kernel.
# rmmod rt2500

2. Extract the driver for WINXP from the OEM CD that came with the card. Since the CD has an MS Windows Install Shield program on it, you must install the drivers into an MS Windows operating system to extract the Hawking Windows drivers. The drivers should extract to a folder "C:\Program Files\HAWKING\Hawking Technologies HWP54G Wireless-G PCI Card\Installer\WINXP".

3. Create a folder on the Puppy PC, /root/HWP54G.

4. Copy the files Rt2500.INF and rt2500.sys from that folder to the PC with Puppy installed into the folder /root/HWP54G. I used a USB flash drive to do this.

5. Use ndiswrapper to install the driver.
# ndiswrapper -i /root/HWP54G/Rt2500.INF

List the driver installed in ndiswrapper
# ndiswrapper -l
rt2500 : driver installed
device (1814:201) present (alternate driver: rt2500)

Load the ndiswrapper module into the kernel
# modprobe ndiswrapper

Check to see if it is loaded OK.
# lsmod | grep ndis
ndiswrapper 178100 0
usbcore 126116 4 usb_storage, ndiswrapper, ohci_hd

4. Click on the "setup" icon on the desktop, then click on "Connect to internet by network interface". You will not see an "ndiswrapper" module loaded because you loaded it manually. However, you should see an Interface wlan0 present.

5. Configure the wlan0 wireless interface as you normally would. I was able to get my WPA/TKIP encryption working fine.

6. Edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file to remove the default rt2500 interface at startup by adding these lines to the end of the file:
rmmod rt2500
modprobe ndiswrapper

[BarryK]

Thanks for the info!

As an extra note, Puppy 2.17 (not yet released, currently alpha), has modules-management in the BootManager (System menu), which will allow you to blacklist any module, so it won't load.

[rdchin]

Could the network wizard get the ability to unload any network modules loaded on booting? Right now, it can only unload modules that were manually loaded through the network wizard.

Otherwise, one would have to exit the network wizard, run the BootManager, ban the rt2500 module from loading on boot, then reboot. I would imagine?

[tempestuous]

rdchin, the Network Wizard uses wpa_supplicant for WPA support, and this only supports the Ralink rt61 and rt73 drivers, not rt2500.
Future versions of the Wizard will warn users about this.

But the rt2500 has inbuilt WPA support, which you can configure either with manual commands, explained here -
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Wifi/drivers- ... README.txt

Or use the Rutilt utility.

[gychang]

How to get Puppy 2.16 working with a Hawking HWP54G Revision R wireless PCI network adapter.

Puppy will automatically load the RT2500 driver into the kernel and create a network interface ra0 for this wireless card. Unfortunately, the default driver will not work with this card (at least not for WPA/PSK encryption when I tried it).

1. First remove or unload this driver from the kernel.
# rmmod rt2500

2. Extract the driver for WINXP from the OEM CD that came with the card. Since the CD has an MS Windows Install Shield program on it, you must install the drivers into an MS Windows operating system to extract the Hawking Windows drivers. The drivers should extract to a folder "C:\Program Files\HAWKING\Hawking Technologies HWP54G Wireless-G PCI Card\Installer\WINXP".

3. Create a folder on the Puppy PC, /root/HWP54G.

4. Copy the files Rt2500.INF and rt2500.sys from that folder to the PC with Puppy installed into the folder /root/HWP54G. I used a USB flash drive to do this.

5. Use ndiswrapper to install the driver.
# ndiswrapper -i /root/HWP54G/Rt2500.INF

List the driver installed in ndiswrapper
# ndiswrapper -l
rt2500 : driver installed
device (1814:201) present (alternate driver: rt2500)

Load the ndiswrapper module into the kernel
# modprobe ndiswrapper

Check to see if it is loaded OK.
# lsmod | grep ndis
ndiswrapper 178100 0
usbcore 126116 4 usb_storage, ndiswrapper, ohci_hd

4. Click on the "setup" icon on the desktop, then click on "Connect to internet by network interface". You will not see an "ndiswrapper" module loaded because you loaded it manually. However, you should see an Interface wlan0 present.

5. Configure the wlan0 wireless interface as you normally would. I was able to get my WPA/TKIP encryption working fine.

6. Edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file to remove the default rt2500 interface at startup by adding these lines to the end of the file:
rmmod rt2500
modprobe ndiswrapper

I have the same PCI card and trying to have it work on the 4.1.2 Puppy. I can't connect since there is no WPA with the driver from the Puppy. When I install the CD on the XP machine there is no rt2500.inf etc, even peeking in the CD driver folder.

could I bother u to send me the files by any chance? to gychang00atgmaildotcom?

gychang

[tempestuous]

gychang,
this post is quite old, and Puppy's kernel and drivers have changed significantly since then.
Since Puppy 4.1, the "rt2500" Linux driver has been replaced with the new "rt2500pci" driver, and this module fully supports WPA encryption via the Network Wizard.

[gychang]

[quote="tempestuous"]gychang,
this post is quite old, and Puppy's kernel and drivers have changed significantly since then.
Since Puppy 4.1, the "rt2500" Linux driver has been replaced with the new "rt2500pci" driver, and this module fully supports WPA encryption via the Network Wizard.[/ng quote]

That's odd, I was try the latest Puppy and could not get the WPA working, I will try it again to see if the proper driver gets loaded.

thanks,

gychang

[rjbrewer]

Gychang;

This link recommends the rt2x00pci driver for the hwp54g rev r
card. It's also included in puppy 4.11-4.12.

Quite unlikely that Tempestuous overlooked anything though.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/



rjb