I have an ASUS eeePC 1000, running Ubuntu 10.10. Wireless worked flawlessly at home, which is where I use it 99% of the time. On our most recent trip, however, it wasn’t working. It couldn’t connect to a WPA-secured network. Here are the relevant error messages:
NetworkManager[770]: <warn> Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long.
NetworkManager[770]: <warn> (wlan0): link timed out.
NetworkManager[770]: <warn> Activation (wlan0) failed for access point (linksys)
NetworkManager[770]: <warn> Activation (wlan0) failed.
NetworkManager[770]: <info> (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 0).
After a little googling on my phone, I found out that others had this problem with the rt2860sta wireless driver. Fortunately, there is a solution, which involved downloading the source code for the latest driver, modifying it a bit and rebuilding the driver. Here are the instructions:
Step 1: Download the driver
Download the latest rt2860sta driver.
Step 2: Rename and extract the downloaded file
Mine was named download.php, but it’s really a tar file:
vinod@ike:~ $ mkdir test
vinod@ike:~ $ mv download.php test/driver.tar
vinod@ike:~ $ cd test/
vinod@ike:~/test $ tar xf driver.tar
vinod@ike:~/test $ mv 2010_07_16_RT2860_Linux_STA_v2.4.0.0 driver
vinod@ike:~/test $ cd driver
Step 3: Apply patch
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| diff -urbB old/common/cmm_wpa.c new/common/cmm_wpa.c | |
| --- old/common/cmm_wpa.c 2010-07-08 07:40:24.000000000 -0400 | |
| +++ new/common/cmm_wpa.c 2011-08-30 18:27:46.856572005 -0400 | |
| @@ -2420,7 +2420,7 @@ | |
| UCHAR PrimaryRsnie; | |
| BOOLEAN bMixCipher = FALSE; // indicate the pairwise and group cipher are different | |
| UCHAR p_offset; | |
| - WPA_MIX_PAIR_CIPHER FlexibleCipher = MIX_CIPHER_NOTUSE; // it provide the more flexible cipher combination in WPA-WPA2 and TKIPAES mode | |
| + WPA_MIX_PAIR_CIPHER FlexibleCipher = WPA_TKIPAES_WPA2_TKIPAES; | |
| rsnielen_cur_p = NULL; | |
| rsnielen_ex_cur_p = NULL; | |
| diff -urbB old/os/linux/config.mk new/os/linux/config.mk | |
| --- old/os/linux/config.mk 2010-07-09 04:58:09.000000000 -0400 | |
| +++ new/os/linux/config.mk 2011-08-30 18:23:52.120572001 -0400 | |
| @@ -8,10 +8,10 @@ | |
| HAS_XLINK=n | |
| # Support Wpa_Supplicant | |
| -HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=n | |
| +HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y | |
| # Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Maganger | |
| -HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=n | |
| +HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y | |
| #Support Net interface block while Tx-Sw queue full | |
| HAS_BLOCK_NET_IF=n |
Step 4: Backup old driver
vinod@ike~/test/driver/ $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
vinod@ike~/test/driver/ $ sudo rmmod rt2860sta
vinod@ike~/test/driver/ $ mkdir backup
vinod@ike~/test/driver/ $ sudo mv /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA backup/
vinod@ike~/test/driver/ $ sudo mv /lib/modules/2.6.35-30-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko backup/
Step 5: Install and activate new driver
vinod@ike:~/test/driver $ sudo make install
vinod@ike:~/test/driver $ sudo depmod -a
vinod@ike:~/test/driver $ sudo modprobe rt2860sta
```
### Step 6: Fix problems with hibernation
A separate problem is that wireless has been flaky when the computer
wakes from hibernation, but [it's also fixable](http://www.twentyways.com/2010/11/19/fixing-wireless-issues-with-asus-eeepc-1000he-running-ubuntu-10-10/).
Add the following lines to `/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf`:
blacklist rt2800pci
blacklist rt2800lib
blacklist rt2x00usb
blacklist rt2x00pci
blacklist rt2x00lib
Create a new file called `/etc/pm/config.d/unload_wireless` with the following line:
SUSPEND_MODULES="rt2860sta"
Reboot and you should have WPA-compatible, hibernatable wireless.
### References:
1. [rt2860sta driver installation](http://www.ctbarker.info/2010/05/ubuntu-1004-wireless-chipsets-and-wpa.html)
2. [Proper hibernation](http://www.twentyways.com/2010/11/19/fixing-wireless-issues-with-asus-eeepc-1000he-running-ubuntu-10-10/)
3. [Ubuntu Forums thread](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1476007)