USB wireless card not working (Linux Mint 13 Maya)

[fimy]

I have a Ralink RT2870STA USB wireless card that I believe I've set up correctly, only the driver is not showing in the Network Hardware pane. I can't connect to the internet via the wireless card, and after many google searches I'm stumped.

If I go to Additional Hardware, it shows the RT2870 Wireless Lan Linux Driver, but not in the Network Hardware. If I try to add it, it only allows me to add a VPN interface.

Here is the output of mintwifi:

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* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
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* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

ra0 Ralink STA ESSID:"" Nickname:"RT2870STA"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level:0 dBm Noise level:0 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 08:60:6e:71:54:6b
inet addr:172.16.1.10 Bcast:172.16.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a60:6eff:fe71:546b/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:44982 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:45822 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:16775556 (16.7 MB) TX bytes:14245008 (14.2 MB)
Interrupt:43 Base address:0x2000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:1201 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1201 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:509190 (509.1 KB) TX bytes:509190 (509.1 KB)

ra0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:25:22:4c:0f:8d
inet addr:172.16.1.12 Bcast:172.16.1.1 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::225:22ff:fe4c:f8d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:23309 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:17125 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7684882 (7.6 MB) TX bytes:1845096 (1.8 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service smbd reload

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the reload(8) utility, e.g. reload smbd
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks

[JeremyB]

You may need to uninstall any driver you have installed and follow the instructions from the link below

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... st12890844

[fimy]

I followed those instructions and restarted but now my Network Manager won't load. I'm still definitely online (through the wired connection) because I'm doing this all over VNC.

What I'm seeing: when I go to the Network pane in system settings, it gives me an error: "The system network services are not compatible with this version."

In pressing on though I realized my router uses WPA. After some googling I set up wpa_supplicant and edited /etc/network/interfaces/ with the SSID and password hash for the router. When I ran ifup ra0 (the name of the interface), I got an error:

Code: Select all

$ sudo ifup ra0
wpa_supplicant: /sbin/wpa_supplicant daemon failed to start
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant exited with return code 1