Comment 50 for bug 37120

Let me clarify:

rt2500 (note the 5) is the old driver which does not support the wireless extensions and which is included in Ubuntu. It is the driver in question here which is causing people grief. It is not being actively developed because all efforts are going into completing the new driver.

rt2x00 (note the x) is the new driver which is not yet completed and is largely unusable at the moment (YMMV). It is being very actively developed and will surely implement the wireless extensions correctly when it becomes stable. The developers are working closely with upstream (kernel) and you will see the driver show up in the main kernel when it is ready. There's a good chance you won't see it in Ubuntu for another year.

I have no knowledge as to how much work it would take to implement the extensions in the rt2500 (old) driver but I am reasonably sure that the patch will be gratefully accepted upstream if it is complete and of good quality.

My personal opinion is that it would be worth while for someone to implement the wireless extensions in the old driver. I'm biased though because I use several RT2500s and because I am pessimistic about the time it may take for the new driver to be completed. I could be wrong.

I recall a complaint on planet.gnome.org some time ago about another driver that was missing WEXT which was answered almost immediately by a hacker posting a patch for it. I'll bet if the SABDFL said that it should be done it would take one of his excellent kernel hackers less than a week to get it working.