Comment 99 for bug 1049466

I'm confused... With a virgin install of 13.04 I can ping stuff, but no way can I use a browser. So I downloaded the latest driver from Ralink. I see from the response to http://askubuntu.com/questions/285163/ralink-rt3290-cant-be-installed that the failure of the Ralink driver download is a 'make' failure that comes from the removal of several macro definitions from the 3.8 kernel headers. These macros are __devinit, __devinitdata, and __devexit . The failures all appear in the Ralink file pci_main_dev.c (which is consistent with the errors that I see when I run my make command on the downloaded driver.) There are eleven errors and sixty warnings including the comment "some warnings being treated as errors" Sigh... the errors seem to all be in the pci_main-dev.c file, but the warnings are in a LOT of files within the Ralink download.

Obviously the Ralink drivers need updating to be consistent with the current version of Ubuntu.

1) For all of those with HP computers with the 3290 Wifi device, is it worth putting pressure on HP to kick the folks at Ralink in the nuts to get this moving? For us, the bastards already have our money, and we got an unusable computer. If they had said up front, when you purchase this computer it will not be compatible with future versions of Ubuntu, that would be a different story, but they didn't say that. As far as I know the 3290 device is still in current production for goodness sake. If just I call, that's one voice. If we all call perhaps we can make some traction?

2) in the alternative is it worth dragging the Ralink driver into the open source world, placing it on Git and collaborating on updating it to the latest ubuntu kernels?