Wireless network Ralink RT3090 Ubuntu driver PPA

Wireless network iconRecently I've purchased HP Compaq Presario CQ56 laptop with Suse Enterprise Linux preloaded. First thing I've done after first boot is removing Suse and installing Ubuntu Maverick. I didn't try installing latest Ubuntu Natty because of my hate-hate relationship with Unity and Linux kernel 2.6.38 power drain bug. So far everything works great only I had little trouble with integrated HD4200 graphics power usage, but open source driver I'm using is getting better every release togeather with its power management subsystem. In one of the next articles I will show you what I've done to turn open source ati radeon driver power management on.

Notice (01.02.2012.): I've created Ubuntu PPA with updated Ralink driver supporting rt3090 wireless devices on all officially supported versions of Ubuntu Linux operating system on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and 10.10 versions of Ubuntu Linux operating system. More info here.

In this article I will show you how to install proprietary Ralink RT3090 wireless network card driver using Markus Heberling PPA (thanks Markus for your great work). Reason I've chose proprietary instead of open source that comes by default on Ubuntu is that open source driver even it is good doesn't find all my networks in the area I use my laptop. So here it is ...

The procedure for installing latest driver for your Ubuntu PC very simple, just copy and paste following commands into your favorite terminal program:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:markus-tisoft/rt3090
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms

All that is left to do is to blacklist default rt3090 driver module and all other driver modules that might interfere from loading at boot. We open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Now we paste following code at the end of the blacklist.conf file:

# Blacklist conflicting RaLink driver modules
blacklist rt2800pci
blacklist rt2800lib
blacklist rt2x00usb
blacklist rt2x00pci
blacklist rt2x00lib
blacklist rt2860sta

Now click save and you are free to reboot your Ubuntu laptop and enjoy using your Ralink RT3090 wireless device. If something doesn't work, comment here and we will see what can be done. 🙂

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48 thoughts on “Wireless network Ralink RT3090 Ubuntu driver PPA

  1. data persada

    This works perfectly with my METSYS netbook from china
    I need offline use off this file:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:markus-tisoft/rt3090
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms

    Would you mind send it to my email please, thank you very much in advance

    Reply
  2. Marko Martinović Author

    Hi! It isn’t just these files, there are many dependencies for these packages. You should do sudo apt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms on Ubuntu machine with internet connection (must have same Ubuntu version as target machine). Then when all is installed you copy contents of /var/cache/apt/archives from this machine to the machine where you don’t have internet (you must do this with sudo). After that you open rt3090-dkms deb package from /var/cache/apt/archives on this new machine, it will mark dependencies it requires and install stuff using packages from apt cache. It may sound difficult but it is really simple 🙂 If you have problems with this just let me know and I will help you, no problem. Cheers!

    Reply
  3. Tony

    Brilliant. The RT3090 card has been driving me crazy for weeks now. Slow downloads, constant disconnects, never finding network etc. Thanks to your blacklist – everything is working perfectly.

    Reply
  4. ecstacy

    it didnt work for shit:(((( this sucks soo bad cuz i have a mifi 2200 and i wnt to set the settings for xbl and i cnt i have to be connected pllzzzzz plzzz help i have a compaq presario cq56 laptop

    Reply
  5. miguel

    Hey, i followed the steps, the OS stabilized, but the wireless still not working :(, the light is off and with lspci -v i realize that the card is unclaimed and that there’s no driver assigned to it… some thoughts ?

    Reply
  6. Bilbut

    Hi,

    I followed the procedure and it worked really fine. But now (after a reboot, several weeks later), the wifi card is no more detected. When I try lscpi, I can see the card, but when I try lsmod, I don’t see any RT3090 module. However, when I look in the Additionnal installed drivers, I can see the RT3090 driver. Any idea ?

    Bilbut

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      Hi, the simplest thing to do would be to remove RT3090 driver together with configuration files (–purge attribute to apt-get remove) and to install it again. My guess is that something went wrong with one of the regular Ubuntu updates.

      Reply
  7. Boris Hitev

    Hello. I just bought Lenovo B575 and I have the same problem or it looks to be the same. The wireless doesn’t work. It’s RT3090 for sure. So I followed the procedure but still doesn’t work. When i lspci:

    Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
    Subsystem: Lenovo Device f101
    Kernel driver in use: rt2860
    Kernel modules: rt3090sta, rt2860sta, rt2800pci

    and when I lsmod I have it in the list but that’s all.
    Before the procedure there was something about it when i type iwconfig but now I have only this:
    iwconfig
    lo no wireless extensions.

    eth0 no wireless extensions.

    ra0 Ralink STA.
    Any Ideas. So I’m pretty new in linux and if you can give some understandable advice I will be really happy :).

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      Hi Boris you can try with lsmod command to see what kernel module is loaded for your wireless card. You should find rt390sta on the list.

      Reply
      1. Vincent

        Hi Marko!

        Thank you very much for great writeup…I also have a G575 Lenovo and like Boris i followed all the steps you provided and did not get it to work right away. However you did give me a good clue about the blacklist file and found that adding “blacklist Acer_wmi” to the list helped my case. It seems that when i tried to enable the Wireless card in system settings Acer_wmi was turning it off. Hopefully this along with your great writeup will help others.

        Thanks Again.

        Reply
    1. arab89ps

      i compiled the driver from the official website and applied opensuse patches and it works like a charm .. but how to make dkms-package could you tell me how ?

      Reply
  8. Gabriel

    Hello there,
    just to say it worked really fine with Ubuntu 11.04, but after the update to 11.10 I got the same problem again.. Anyway, if that’s your case too, you just have to ‘un-blacklist’ the drivers on blacklist.conf file.
    It worked like a charm.

    Thanks.

    Reply
  9. ND

    If you have something similar to the listing below in your blacklist in order to have your Ubuntu 11.04 to work then …

    # Blacklist conflicting RaLink driver modules
    blacklist rt2800pci
    blacklist rt2800lib
    blacklist rt2x00usb
    blacklist rt2x00pci
    blacklist rt2x00lib
    blacklist rt2860sta

    … you need to UNDO the above by commenting them all out when you update to Ubuntu 11.10 to have your WiFi working again. That is my experience.

    Reply
  10. josé chaves

    por favor, será que vocês podem me ajudar? tenho um hp, 4gb, 64bits, com w7, e minha internet é com mini modem 3g da tim, marca onda, que no w7 funciona bem. estou tentando instalar o ubuntu 10.10, só que não consigo me conectar com o mini modem. ele nem aparece no ubuntu. se nalguem puder me ajudar, por favor me mande no email : asachaves@gmail.com . obrigado desde já!

    Reply
  11. simon

    YES!
    Success!
    Thank you thank you.
    I installed Linux Mint Katya(ubuntu natty) on an Acer Revo Aspire R3700, and oh boi was i depressed.
    Initially the computer would hang/freeze when i chose restart.
    I thought it was because i was using HDMI for my monitor, so i swapped it for an analog screen.
    But it continued to freeze when i restarted/rebooted, then when i went to disable wireless because it couldn’t see any wifi’s it froze again.
    After trying mint-irc and searching the googles, it was hopeless, then i found u.
    Yay!
    not freezes, no lockups, it boot b-e-a-utifully now and as a bonus i have a working wifi, hehehe, happy dayz.

    sky.

    PS. I am trying to build a kiosk style touch screen.
    The basic premise is it just offers options for an athletic machine and at the end of a session display progress.

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      No problem, Marcus H. is the one who maintains PPA and he gets the credit for nice package for proprietary Ralink driver. It is sad that current state of open source Ralink driver (rt2800pci) is poor so we have no choice but to install yet another proprietary driver. But it works great 😉

      Reply
  12. james

    Thanking you for a clear, concise and extremely helpful article from my wife’s vaio netbook running ubuntu netbook version through the ralink wireless network card!

    Reply
  13. Imran Saleh

    When I follow the steps above and reboot, the results for airmon-ng are this:

    Interface Chipset Driver

    wlan0 Zydas zd1211b zd1211rw – [phy0]

    I then deleted the code that was previously added to the black list and i got the following results:

    Interface Chipset Driver

    wlan0 Zydas zd1211b zd1211rw – [phy0]

    wlan1 Unknown rt3090

    when i try to enter “sudo apt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms” it says that it is already installed and updated. but apt-get autoremove removed some useless files. either way i cannot use the internal rt3090 network card. wlan0 is an external network card that i am using that isn’t very good.

    by the way i thought i should mention that i am using backtrack 5 r1

    Reply
    1. Imran Saleh

      woops… sorry the second airmon-ng result is wrong…. this is what it actually is (did not copy-paste and did not read: just typed what i thought it said).

      here is what it actually is

      Interface Chipset Driver

      wlan1 Unknown rt2800pci – [phy1]
      wlan0 Zydas zd1211b zd1211rw – [phy0]

      any help appreciated on how to make it work

      Reply
  14. Andy King

    When i try to install the up i.e sudo apt-get install ….. etc i get a file can not be located.

    I have added the repository however when i update i get a few errors any idea’s?

    Reply
  15. Waddy

    Awesome thanks for the guide. This worked on all my ubunto machines upto 11.04. I just upgraded to 11.10 and the ralink 3090 just works, i needed to remove the third party driver and the previous blacklist and it worked.

    Reply
  16. Francesco

    Hi Marko,

    I`m trying to configure this stupid RaLink RT3090 on a HP 620 with backtrack 5 KDE and no luck so far 🙁 Can you please help me? I tried your suggestion but its not working!
    Here are few commands:

    root@bt:~# lsmod
    Module Size Used by
    ppdev 5096 0
    snd_hda_codec_hdmi 21585 1
    snd_hda_codec_idt 55705 1
    arc4 1141 2
    snd_hda_intel 21656 2
    snd_hda_codec 79287 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
    rt2800pci 7938 0
    rt2800lib 33048 1 rt2800pci
    crc_ccitt 1281 1 rt2800lib
    snd_hwdep 5424 1 snd_hda_codec
    joydev 8649 0
    snd_pcm_oss 36427 0
    snd_mixer_oss 13581 1 snd_pcm_oss
    rt2x00pci 5178 1 rt2800pci
    snd_pcm 68875 4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
    rt2x00lib 33002 3 rt2800pci,rt2800lib,rt2x00pci
    mac80211 248838 3 rt2800lib,rt2x00pci,rt2x00lib
    snd_seq_dummy 1358 0
    snd_seq_oss 26216 0
    snd_seq_midi 4460 0
    snd_rawmidi 18745 1 snd_seq_midi
    snd_seq_midi_event 5720 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
    snd_seq 45875 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
    snd_timer 17835 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
    hp_wmi 5315 0
    cfg80211 152934 2 rt2x00lib,mac80211
    sparse_keymap 3098 1 hp_wmi
    snd_seq_device 5281 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
    uvcvideo 60089 0
    rfkill 14987 2 hp_wmi,cfg80211
    wmi 8740 1 hp_wmi
    lp 7373 0
    videodev 64006 1 uvcvideo
    eeprom_93cx6 1292 1 rt2800pci
    psmouse 52655 0
    parport 29468 2 ppdev,lp
    snd 50345 17 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
    mac_hid 3029 0
    serio_raw 3712 0
    soundcore 6016 1 snd
    snd_page_alloc 6769 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
    usbhid 35213 0
    hid 67599 1 usbhid
    i915 458129 2
    drm_kms_helper 30726 1 i915
    drm 171919 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
    ahci 18378 2
    r8169 35417 0
    mii 4058 1 r8169
    libahci 19579 1 ahci
    i2c_algo_bit 4852 1 i915
    intel_agp 9614 1 i915
    intel_gtt 13296 3 i915,intel_agp
    video 10930 1 i915
    agpgart 27382 4 drm,intel_agp,intel_gtt

    (I dont see RT3090 module loaded in here)

    root@bt:~# lspci
    02:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe

    root@bt:~# iwconfig
    lo no wireless extensions.

    eth0 no wireless extensions.

    wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
    Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=off
    Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
    Encryption key:off
    Power Management:off

    root@bt:~# ifconfig wlan0 up
    SIOCSIFFLAGS: Unknown error 132

    root@bt:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback

    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet dhcp

    auto eth1
    iface eth1 inet dhcp

    auto eth2
    iface eth2 inet dhcp

    auto ath0
    iface ath0 inet dhcp

    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp

    root@bt:~# lspci -vv

    02:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1453
    Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
    Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- SERR- <PERR- INTx-
    Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
    Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
    Region 0: Memory at 98800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
    Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
    Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
    Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/5 Enable-
    Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000
    Capabilities: [70] Express (v2) Endpoint, MSI 00
    DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <512ns, L1 unlimited
    ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset-
    DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
    RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
    MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
    DevSta: CorrErr+ UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq+ AuxPwr- TransPend-
    LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <512ns, L1 <64us
    ClockPM+ Suprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
    LnkCtl: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk+
    ExtSynch- ClockPM+ AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
    LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
    Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
    Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number e0-2a-82-e1-18-e1-00-00
    Kernel driver in use: rt2800pci
    Kernel modules: rt2860sta, rt2800pci

    root@bt:~# lshw -C network
    *-network DISABLED
    description: Wireless interface
    product: RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
    vendor: RaLink
    physical id: 0
    bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
    logical name: wlan0
    version: 00
    serial: e0:2a:82:e1:18:e1
    width: 32 bits
    clock: 33MHz
    capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
    configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=2.6.38 firmware=0.34 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
    resources: irq:17 memory:98800000-9880ffff

    Any idea?

    Many Thanks in advance 😉
    Francesco

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      Hi,
      if you are trying to use rt3090sta I see “Kernel driver in use: rt2800pci” what looks like you haven’t blacklisted all conflicting kernel modules?

      Reply
      1. Francesco

        Hi Marko,

        Thanks for your reply.

        The strange thing is that when I power on the laptop, the wifi works, after few minutes it says “No Wireless Found” and guess how do I fix it? rebooting the pc!! thats weird, isn`t?
        If I add your blacklist.conf it will not even work after rebooting.

        🙁

        Reply
  17. Abhay Singh Chauhan

    The help shown really works well. I have an HP pavilion dv6 3116tu laptop having a ralink rt3090 wireless card and rt2860sta. It wasn’t showing any of the wireless networks , but after typing the above commands on terminal and rebooting ubuntu 10.04LTs everything is workings smoothly.Thanks a ton!!!

    Reply
  18. mastrosaurus

    Sorry to inform you that the “sudo apt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms” returns “unable to locate file rt3090-dkms”. Am I missing something?

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      Probably not, this PPA supports Ubuntu based distros up to Natty (11.04) and you are probably using Oneiric (11.10). Oneiric and newer should have decent ralink driver bundled with kernel (not perfect though).

      Reply
  19. jaime ramirez

    Hola, tengo instalado ubuntu 11.04 en una PC con tarjeta inalambrica ralink 802.11n wireless LAN card, me puedes ayudar con el driver?

    Mil Gracias

    Reply
  20. Marcin

    Unfortunately Your PPA does not work with 10.04LTS w/3.0.0 generic kernel. Here’s a snap from logs:

    Konfigurowanie rt3090-dkms (1:2.3.1.7-0ubuntu0~ppa2) …
    Adding Module to DKMS build system
    Doing initial module build

    Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.0.0-25-generic (x86_64)
    Consult the make.log in the build directory
    /var/lib/dkms/rt3090/2.3.1.7/build/ for more information.
    Installing initial module

    Error! Could not locate rt3090sta.ko for module rt3090 in the DKMS tree.
    You must run a dkms build for kernel 3.0.0-25-generic (x86_64) first.
    Done.

    That’s all. What could I do?

    Reply
    1. Marko Author

      Hello,
      unfortunatelly the driver I’ve packaged has been built to work with kernel 2.6.32 and older. Since Ralink hasn’t release any driver updates it is what it is.

      Reply
  21. Raveydavey

    Great stuff, worked first time on my Acer Revo with Ubuntu 10.04. Also found it useful to blacklist acer-wmi which was bringing up an error message at boot, although not preventing operation of new driver.

    Reply
  22. Don Kim

    Hi,

    when I do sudoapt-get install dkms rt3090-dkms,

    It says:

    dkms is already the newest version.

    rt3090-dkms is already the newest version.

    I have the blacklist

    blacklist rt2800pci
    blacklist rt2800lib
    blacklist rt2x00usb
    blacklist rt2x00pci
    blacklist rt2x00lib
    blacklist rt2860sta

    But no module for rt3090sta is listed with lsmod.
    lsmod | grep rt

    parport_pc             27504  0 

    rts5139               277682  0 

    parport                40753  3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc

    dpkg -l |grep rt3090

    ii  rt3090-dkms                               1:2.4.0.4-0ubuntu0~ppa0                                                all          Support for the Ralink RT3090PCIe network card

    But Ubuntu 13.04 complains that I am using the unofficial ubuntu package rt3090-dkms.

    Please help me what can I do to solve the problem.

     

     

     

    Reply
  23. Alx

    Funcionando perfectamente en una Compaq Mini cq10-400 con Lubuntu 10.04 y una red inalámbrica RaLink RT3090. Es una pena que no pueda compilarse el driver para kernels > 3.0.0. De todas formas, ¡un gran trabajo! Saludos desde Argentina.

    ——————————————————————–

    Working perfectly on a Compaq Mini cq10-400 with Lubuntu 10.04 and Ralink RT3090 wireless network. It’s a shame that we don’t compile the driver for kernel > 3.0.0. Anyway, great job! Greetings from Argentina.

    Reply

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