• MSI U-100 Netbook - Fedora Core 9 and WIFI setup.
  • (2GbRAM, 320GbHDD, Ralink WIFI)
    Using an External USB 2.0 DVD-RW Drive used instead of a USB Flash drive. After a lot of playing about it came down to the ease of just burning the iso to a disc, plugging in the drive and choosing to boot from the DVD-RW drive via the F11 Boot menu.
    
    The installation media was downloaded via http://spins.fedoraunity.org torrent and was the latest 'respin' of the Fedora 9 install DVD found in the respins section. This overcame the USB-Core drivers issue and the DVD-RW was accessible by the installer.
    
    NB:(Using the official release Fedora 'Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso' from the various mirrors produced a USB-Core driver error which put a crimp in any plans to load drivers for USB devices (DVD-RW drive or Flash Drive), so a bit of a dead end.)
    
    NB2:(To identify if the installed WIFI card is the Ralink check under the Netbook for a FCC sticker that indicates,
    RF Module installed:
    Ralink Technology Corporation
    RT2700E(MS-6890))
    
    After doing the install and including kernel-devel and kernel-headers packages the Ralink RT2860STA linux driver was compiled and installed from http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html and after following the README_STA, from the Ralink untarred source files directory, and setting up the /etc/Wireless/RT2860/RT2860STA.dat file as per the instructions there wasn't much happening even with all the pertinent information added to it.
    Although the README_STA indicates to add only DEVICE, ONBOOT and BOOTPROTO(if DHCP) I added the other fields also (ESSID, TYPE, CHANNEL, MODE and RATE) to the ifcfg-ra0 file that the README_STA said to create and magically, I have a WEP64, Shared Auth, Secured link to my WLAN.
    The settings also translate through from the GUI network tool, so thats pretty handy but as to why setting the RT2860STA.dat file didn't work is a mystery.
    Here are the steps to take in point order.
    1. Download the respin and burn it to a disc.
    2. Install Fedora and add or include development tools and packages.
    3. Download the Ralink linux driver, untar/ungzip it, read the README_STA file and follow the instructions, then
    3a. Make (check the patching note in the README_STA if it doesn't compile properly.)
    3b. Make install
    3c. Create a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0 config file (root) and include within the lines,
    DEVICE=ra0
    BOOTPROTO=dhcp
    ONBOOT=yes
    ESSID='Your SSID'
    TYPE=Wireless
    MODE=Auto
    RATE=Auto
    3d. Edit /etc/modprobe.conf and add,
    alias ra0 rt2860sta
    4. Restart the network or reboot the Computer.
    
    The original hardware upgrade was to install Windows Vista as a test which also works great as all the MSI drivers are Vista/XP drivers and Vista seems to be smoother and just as fast (maybe faster) than the XP Home that came pre-installed.
    
    Now We have the MSI Wind U-100 Netbook fully Fedora-ized with WIFI, Wired and Bluetooth interfaces all up and working, which is pretty groovy, Dual-booting (via GRUB) Vista and Fedora Core 9 to play with!

Tutorials
MSI U-100 Netbook - Fedora Cor...
MSI U-100 Netbook - Fedora Cor...
Netgear WG511v1 on FC11 with W...

T: (08)9345 1129
F: (08)9345 0919
P: PO Box 233, Tuart Hill WA 6939