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Getting a WMP56G pci wifi card working under debian etch

So I got my card working not long ago, then went and bought a amd64 pc and had to do it all again. It wasn’t a walk in the park last time, and this time the driver would compile but wouldn’t load. I was about to email the amd64 debian mailing list when I found someone saying to try the rt2x00 driver. So I did…

module-assistant get rt2x00
module-assistant build rt2x00
module-assistant install rt2x00
modrpobe rt2x00

All fine, so I decided to try loading up the card.
my /etc/network/interfaces looks like:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid MySSID
wpa-driver wext
wpa-conf /etc/wpasupplicant.conf

and my /etc/wpasupplicant.conf was modified from the wpa example supplied with the wpasupplicant package (/usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant) and looks like

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
ssid=”my ssid”
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk=”my wifi key”
}

Then running

ifup wlan0

and I am connected.

Sooo much simpler than the other way I did it

EDIT: Don’t forget (like I did first) to grab the firmware from ralink as the driver won’t work without the firmware files!

RFID passports secure?

If you thought the new UK RFID passports are secure, then you need to see the following article which says otherwise: Cracked it! – Guardian Unlimited

Suffice to say, I will be carrying mine in a foil wallet when I get it!

nvidia in debian

Since I last had to install the nvidia drivers in debian, things have changed a bit.

It used to be fiddly to get the nvidia drivers installed, but if you are running etch (or later) you should just be able to run (as root)


apt-get install module-assistant nvidia-kernel-common nvidia-glx
module-assistant auto-install nvidia
module-assistant install nvidia

Then just edit your X config (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and change the driver line with “nv” to “nvidia” and restart your window manager and all should be running.

There is a wonderful howto with loads more detail at http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debian-nVidia/installation.html