MediaTek (Logic Supply) Wi-Fi adapter for BBB and Debian

If anyone could please write a small tutorial on getting this adapter working on the Rev. C BBB it would be appreciated. It was said that Debian already supported this hardware but it does not work. Compiling my own drivers is not user-friendly! I downloaded the driver files from MediaTek and it has 254 files in one directory.

The Debian image is located here, with built-in support for the Logic Supply.

http://beagleboard.org/latest-images

Regards,

Thanks, I’ll install that new image and see how it goes.

The new Debian version did not change non-installation of the Wi-Fi adapter. I still can’t figure out what is missing. Here is a sample from terminal:

debian@beaglebone:~$ iwlist scan

ra0 Failed to read scan data : Network is down
lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.
eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.
usb0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

debian@beaglebone:~$ iwconfig

ra0 Ralink STA
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
usb0 no wireless extensions.

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo ifup ra0
Ignoring unknown interface ra0=ra0.

debian@beaglebone:~$

This installation is possible via terminal, no? Or must I get a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to BBB?

No, you don’t need a monitor you should be good.
You can always check this site for your chipset :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wireless_drivers
also type dmesg to see if you have any errors
type lsmod to see if your kernel module is loaded
But ra0 is your network interface name and iwlist shows it which means you have your dongle recognized.
Have you initialized you network interface? Type "ifconfig -a" to check if you have ra0 listed.If so, add this to your /etc/network/interfaces and reboot to and check again.

 
auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
    wpa-ssid YOUR-SSID-HERE
    wpa-psk YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE
 

You are right! I studied the Debian documentation yesterday and modified my /etc/network/interfaces file, and it did work! It isn’t fast to come up, taking about 90 seconds, and probably needs the 5V adapter connected, too. I made exactly the changes you put here. Quotes should be around the names in lines 3 and 4.

If you can, and make your IP config static, the interface should come up faster. Also, although I am not sure what it is, I think there is a “fix” to shorten how long it takes for DHCP configs to come up.

Alternatively, you can use the included wicd utility to manage your network connections. To make it work with the UWN200, you will need to edit the config file to point to the right interface:
/etc/wicd/manager-settings.conf

Then you can use wicd-curses to connect to your access point. I set mine to autoconnect, and DHCP takes no time at all. And yes, a 5V AC adapter connected to the wall is always recommended when using any peripherals.

Hi Russ Hall,
Your help will be greatly appreciated !

I am a beginner about BBB and trying to use UWN200 on BBB(rev C with debian 3.8.13),
I have tried to follow the tutorial on
http://inspire.logicsupply.com/2014/07/beaglebone-wifi-installation.html

However, Stucking at step3 with red warning
NO wireless network found.

Seems like at the very beginning there is something wrong:
After I type lsmod, I got this: not using by one instead of 0

mt7601Usta 601404 0

The Result of lsusb is the same:

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 148f:7601 Ralink Technology, Corp.

When it comes to ifconfig-a, it shows like this:

ra0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Because the strange HWaddr, I guess there must be something wrong , maybe just the first step.

I search for a long time and don’t know how to start fix the bug.