Hello,

i have a Asus WL-500gp v1 Router with OpenWrt. Now i plan to add an usb wlan stick on this router. Can someone give me a hint which stick will work proper with linux and how i install it. Thanks alot!

regards
Strater

There's no way to know exactly... usually broadcom and atheros based sticks works well.
You could write down a list of the sticks you can buy to your local stores, google their model numbers to see what chipset are based on, and then check if that chipset are supported by openwrt wireless drivers!

Mattia

Can someone supply the models for a couple of known-good usb wlan sticks?  This is a situation for which, as far as I can tell, there are no documented solutions on the forum.

I don't have devices with USB running Openwrt at the moment... so I can't help.
If someone has, could please check if any usb wifi dongle is working?

The problem is that often wireless drivers are binary only files (for x86)... and without source they can't be re-compiled for your platform (I think WL-500gp is MIPS, right?).

Mattia

I plan to buy this wlan-stick: TP-Link TL-WN321G with a Ralink chipset
Does anyone knows if it will work?
Since I am not very familiar with linux it is important that it is easy to install and without compiling works.

Strater

Unfortunately you seem to be in the same state as these previous threads this year on usb wireless on kamikaze 8.09 and trunk--no substantive answers.

http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=20149
http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=20059
http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=19520
http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=18280

Perhaps because most people using openwrt have devices which already have wireless and don't have usb, there appears to be little interest on the part of those who might know how in documenting what is needed to get wireless working on a platform like the NSLU2 or the bifferboard or the Sheevaplug or perhaps on an x86 platform.  It would be nice to see what needs to be done or which usb sticks "just work".

This community needs more support from older and skilled members... Documentation is very poor... and what about the wiki? Its name have been changed in oldwiki. It means that's somehow deprecated? There's a newwiki???

@Strater

I looked for infos on the wifi stick you posted about. It should be based on Ralink R73 chip.
I took a quick look at the menuconfig of kamikaze 8.09.

This is what i found:
Kernel Module -> Wireless Drivers -> kmod-r73-usb

So... this stick *should* be supported.

Make sure your router has usb support, you will need:
kmod-usb-core
kmod-r73-usb
You can retrive them using opkg.

I'm not 100% sure... but that stick is supported.
Can anyone else confirm???

Ok, since this stick is not very expensive I will order it and try it. I will report my (hopefully good) experience asap.

regards

Strater

@AraKs

Ok, I have the stick now and it does not work. About which Kernel version do you talk? Since I have a device with broadcom WLAN I use the 2.4 Kernel. For this Kernel the package kmod-r73-usb is not available. How can I get the sourcecode and how can I compile it for my openwrt?
Thanks alot!

Regards
Strater

(Last edited by Strater on 12 May 2009, 18:00)

Now I found the sourcecode for the driver, but I dont know exactly how to compile? Is it possible to compile on the router? Which packages and sourcees do I need?

Thanks!!

I'm currently using d-link dwl-g122 on Procare eShare ES-8068 running openwrt. I just selected the modules from "make kernel_menuconfig" and other tools from openwrt config. Finally copied rt73.bin in place and punched:
iwlist wlan0 scan
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 key off
iwconfig wlan0 ap <AP address goes here>
iwconfig wlan0 channel 1
iwconfig wlan0 essid <essid here>
dhcpcd wlan0

For some reason I'm having hard time making it associate with the AP but running the commands enough many times makes it work. Could be just weak signal.