# ASUS WL-107g

*2006-04-21*

> Set up the ASUS WL-107g PCMCIA wireless card on Gentoo GNU/Linux with open source drivers, kernel configuration, and wireless tools.

Today I bought an ASUS WL-107g PCMCIA wireless card. It wasn’t hard to get it working under GNU/Linux - in my case, [Gentoo](https://www.gentoo.org/). Here’s how I set it up.

## 1. Choosing drivers

There were two options: the drivers and ASUS utilities supplied on the card’s CD-ROM, or the [open source drivers](https://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400/), released under the GNU General Public License. I chose the open source drivers.

## 2. Installing the open source drivers

**Note:** The beta driver release available when I wrote this post required Linux 2.6.13 or later.

### 2.1. Kernel configuration

Open the kernel configuration menu:

```sh
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
```

Check that the following options are enabled:

```text
Device Drivers --->
    Network device support --->
        [*] Network device support
        Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) --->
            [*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions
```

If you change these settings, rebuild and boot the updated kernel before compiling the driver.

### 2.2. Driver installation

Download the driver archive and read the supplied README for any specific build requirements. Extract the archive, then change to the extracted directory. For a `.tar.gz` archive, use:

```sh
tar -xvzf driver-archive.tar.gz
cd driver-source-directory
```

Replace `driver-archive.tar.gz` and `driver-source-directory` with the actual archive and directory names.

Compile and install the driver. The installation step requires root privileges:

```sh
make && make install
```

## 3. Utilities

Useful tools include `pcmcia-cs` and `iwconfig`, which is provided by `wireless-tools`. Consult their manual pages for usage information.

On Gentoo, run the following commands as root:

```sh
emerge -av pcmcia-cs wireless-tools
rc-update add pcmcia default
```

Then edit `/etc/conf.d/pcmcia` as needed for your setup.

Have fun.