A well used phrase in the Linux community. When fighting against wireless drivers that don't work you have to ask yourself - do I really need wireless or would it be better to stab myself in the eyes with a large needle instead. After spending the last days repairing my computer after "upgrading" to a more recent kernel version - gotta love configuring X; I finally found some hope of getting my fscking wireless card to work.
The most frustrating thing is that I know it will work eventually. Its just matter of application. Unfortunately my time presently is a rather precious commodity so I'd rather not read through reams of linux "help" forums reading stuck up nerds look down on n00bs. Cunts.
Anyway - details. To check the card is registered type lsusb. You will see a list of other usb devices plugged in, your Microsoft 3 button mouse for example. A nice mouse. I have a Dlink DWL-G122. Hardware Version C1 and Firmware 3. Apparently - the correct driver is the RT73. The rt2500 and rt2570 make the system hang and ultimately freeze when the stick is removed. Nice - cunts.
You can download the source (with your non-existent internet connection) here:
http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html
Full credit to Ralink for their commitment - fuck you to Dlink to making an incomprehensible and un-navigatable website from which to find this information. Cunts. Also - a really well documented README - one with like actual instructions and stuff. A lesson for you all - you non-documenting pricks. You will need dos2unix as well. Part of the sysutils package on debian. Also known as tofrodos - just you know to make it easier. Whilst this package is available on a bunch of freeware sites I dislike using these places - e.g. softpedia. But fuck it - I got it from here:
http://www.thefreecountry.com/tofrodos/index.shtml
Obviously if you have an ethernet connection just use apt-get. I had to set the man dir and the tar will spill its contents into the current directory so its best to create a new one for this program. In debian the man dir is /usr/share/man/man1.
So after the detour to get the dos2unix (or fromdos) working. Go back and follow the excellent instructions from ralink. make the driver. Copy to /etc/Wireless/RT73STA do the dos to unix on the data file. And then add the module to the kernel - all in the readme from ralink. Obviously connect the thing before typing ifconfig up but you know apart from that it actually fucking works.
Well - actually only sort of. Now you're going to have to work out how to work out how to connect to some crappy WEP/WPA encrypted home network - but at least your computer has stopped crashing.
VERDICT: Suicide narrowly averted. Death has finally removed himself from outside my window. The cunt. Apologies for the language.
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Also worth mentioning - the mac address of the thing won't show up if you use the extension cable for the dongle. Extra CUNTS.
Yep, I've had the exact same experience with every USB Wifi dongle I've used (and quite a few PCMCIA cards) it's a fucking nightmare.
The best solution I've found so far for a desktop machine is to use a Wireless access point that works in client mode.
Basically you can configure an access point so it puts all the traffic from your Ethernet interface out over Wifi, so you just need to get your Ethernet port working under linux.
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