F9: Compiled and created rt2870sta.ko, but where to install?

[Kevin Kofler]

Dan Thurman <dant <at> cdkkt.com> writes:
> I obtained the rt2870 software from:
> http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html
> and the specific file I downloaded was: RT2870USB(RT2870/RT2870)
> 
<http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0528_RT2870_Linux_STA_v1.3.0.0.tar.bz2> 
> 
>  From what I can tell, it is an Open-Source Organization and I
> did not see any licensing in regards to the code i.e. I do not
> think I recall having to click on any license agreements.

It is GPL (version 2 or later), but unfortunately the driver appears to be 
using either the legacy WiFi stack or a custom one, not the mac80211 stack 
which all new drivers are supposed to use. (They state in the README file that 
they're still supporting RHL 7.3. :-/ Of course there's no mac80211 in such 
ancient kernels.) It is not based on the mac80211-based rt2x00 driver. What 
this means for you is that:
* the driver probably cannot be merged as is into the upstream kernel, so you 
will have to either build it yourself or rely on a third-party repository and
* it might be hard to build the driver with current kernels.

On the other hand, not many manufacturers release drivers under the GPL, so I 
should probably not complain too much.

        Kevin Kofler