HOWTO: Belkin wireless g usb network adapter F5D7050

Thought I would offer this brief 'how to' on setting this device up. It comes with a USB Wireless G stick and also a base station that you could use to move the USB stick around. The cable on the base is about 8 - 10 feet long. The stick works with or without the base.

This device is a relatively cheap USB Wireless G pen/stick - you can get them for circa US$40 and mine has a great signal strength sitting 6 rooms away (about 200 feet) from an access point. You can get one from an on-line store even (e.g. http://www.nextdaypc.com/main/products/details.aspx?pid=1912738&rsmainid=ND0011694&).

It can use 2 different modules depending on the FCC ID:

    K7SF5D7050A - rt2500
    K7SF5D7050B - rt73

The modules are in Portage. However, I couldn't get it to work with the ones included on the Sabayon Linux 3.2 LiveDVD, and lsmod would actually show both the rt2500 and rt73 modules loaded. I tried for about 3 hours to get it to work with the one for my card, which uses the rt73 module.

The modules are also available at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com

This brief howto covers the rt73 setup.

Download the daily cvs from the above address - rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz

Extract it:

$ tar xzfvp rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz

Remove the ones that are in Portage:

# emerge -C rt2500
# emerge -C rt73
# emerge -C rt73-firmware

Remove the leftover modules in your kernel modules directory. Since I am still running 2.6.18-gentoo-4, mine are at:

# rm /lib/modules/2.6.18-gentoo-r4/net/rt2500.ko
# rm /lib/modules/2.6.18-gentoo-r4/net/rt73.ko

Change to the directory you extracted the daily cvs:

# cd rt73*/Module

Make and make install:

# make && make install

Edit the file /etc/modules.d/rt73 and change it to:

#alias usbra? rt73
alias ra0 rt73

Run modules-update force:

# modules-update force

Load the module:

# modprobe rt73

Now, run the command iwconfig and it should show something about rausb0 but it wont have an IP address yet.

# iwconfig

create the net.rausb0 by linking it to net.eth0 in the init.d directory:

# /etc/init.d/net.rausb0 start

And use default settings. If you need to set ESSID or Encryption, you will need to modify /etc/conf.d/wireless

When done, you should be able to run iwconfig and show your connected settings:

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

vmnet1    no wireless extensions.

vmnet8    no wireless extensions.

rausb0    RT73 WLAN  ESSID:"tSp"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:06:25:A5:A4:F5
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=65534 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=77/100  Signal level:-62 dBm  Noise level:-99 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

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