villages_ar

. . . still getting used to the layout of this forum. I posted this in a distro-specific forum - and it should have been posted here. Mea Culpa. Looks as though I'm not the only one with problems with this device.

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Facts:

Mandriva 2007.0 distro, new installation.

Trying to connect working Belkin F5D7050 usb dongle to home wireless.
Specs on dongle and proposed linux connection configs:

http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/belkin/index.html

I tried an install through the Mandrake gui, which (not surprisingly) didn't work. As alternative I selected the ndiswrapper option, and so far it's been fairly smooth. I installed ndiswrapper, got the Win drivers from the vendor cd, installed the "wireless tools" utility. No problems to that point:

---confirmed valid ndiswrapper and driver installation:

[root@localhost martin]# ndiswrapper -l
rt73 driver installed, hardware present

---verified presence on usb port:

[root@localhost martin]# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 050d:705a Belkin Components

---Problem - see iwconfig query below, re. "rausb0 RT2500USB." System is pulling in an incorrect Win driver that's also identified with Belkin 70xx dongles. First of all, I don't know where this driver is coming from. It may be a leftover from my attempt to configure the card through the Mandriva MCC. But, it's obviously blocking the correct rt73 ndiswrapper driver from binding to the dongle.

[root@localhost martin]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

rausb0 RT2500USB WLAN ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level:-120 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

In any case, I need to get the usb config'd to bind to the rt73.inf driver that's configured correctly in ndiswrapper, and override whatever process is calling and using the rt2500 driver. I'd prefer a process that doesn't require running a console script every time I want to insert the dongle.

I found a Ubuntu forum thread that posed exactly the same problem on exactly the same device, and a working solution. See:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-333166.html

I understand the problem he describes, since it's mine exactly. Happily he figured out a solution. However, I'm new enough to this process that I can't interpret the user's fix, or how to apply it in my environment. A boot-time blacklist of that driver would seem to be the right direction, but I don't know how to configure it, or if that will even fix the problem. I assume there is a runtime configuration process activated (as usual with usb) just as the usb device is inserted. I have a basic grasp of linux commands, but I don't work extensively in a console. A bit of hand-holding may be in order.

Thanks!