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Ubuntu Ibex Wireless and RT61PCI

Ever since I upgraded to Ubuntu Ibex, my wireless has stopped working. Network Manager was able to scan and display available networks, but couldn't connect. I waited a while to see if a patch might fix it, but none did. I got it working again tonight. My solution involves removing Network Manager (which isn't a problem for me since I'm doing this on my desktop). Basically, I followed some directions from the Ubuntu Forums. However, I've made some small changes and added some instructions where I felt there were gaps.
  • Disable and remove Network Manager.
    sudo killall NetworkManager
    sudo apt-get remove network-manager
  • Remove the rt61pci module and blacklist it to prevent it from loading in the future.
    sudo modprobe -r rt61pci
    echo 'blacklist rt61pci' | sudo tee -a \
    /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
  • Download the serialmonkey rt61 legacy CVS tarball and install it.
    tar zxvf rt61-cvs-daily.tar.gz
    cd rt61-cvs*/Module
    make
    sudo cp rt61.ko \
    /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
    sudo depmod
    sudo modprobe rt61
  • Edit /etc/network/interfaces by adding/modifying the following section.
    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    pre-up iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
    pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up
    pre-up iwconfig wlan0 essid [your SSID]
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set AuthMode=WPA2PSK
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set WPAPSK=[your ascii key]
    pre-up iwpriv wlan0 set EncrypType=AES
  • Bring up the wireless interface by typing sudo ifup wlan0 or rebooting.

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