I was able to install successfully on my Linux Fedora Core 6 PC an Edimax EW-7128g 802.11 PCI Card (Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g). I was able to connect to my wi-fi router and surf the web without problem through the ra0 interface, even after rebooting the PC. The fact is that this worked only for a few days. One day the wifi connection stopped working and I hadn't changed anything. I reinstalled Fedora Core 6 and the card again from the beggining, and it worked, but again, after a few days the same thing happened and it stopped working.

The problem is that after some time the ra0 interface dissapears from my system. A wmaster0 interface appears instead.

Following I copy the output of several commands I execute on my PC, and also some screenshots of what is shown on my "Network Configuration" tool.

The output of ifconfig:

[root@localhost Linux]# ifconfig
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:3651 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3651 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:6147313 (5.8 MiB)  TX bytes:6147313 (5.8 MiB)

The output of iwconfig:

[root@localhost Linux]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated  
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B  
          Encryption key:
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

If I execute "ifconfig ra0 192.168.0.68 up":

[root@localhost Linux]# ifconfig ra0 192.168.0.68 up
SIOCSIFADDR: The device doesn't exist
ra0: unknown interface: The device doesn't exist
ra0: unknown interface: The device doesn't exist

If I execute "ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.68 up":

[root@localhost Linux]# ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.68 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: The device doesn't exist
SIOCSIFFLAGS: The device doesn't exist

If I execute "ifconfig wmaster0 192.168.0.68 up":

[root@localhost Linux]# ifconfig wmaster0 192.168.0.68 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: The operation is not supported
SIOCSIFFLAGS: The operation is not supported

If I execute "iwlist ra0 scanning":

[root@localhost Linux]# iwlist ra0 scanning
ra0       Interface doesn't support scanning.

If I execute "iwlist wlan0 scanning":

[root@localhost Linux]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

If I execute "iwlist wmaster0 scanning":

[root@localhost Linux]# iwlist wmaster0 scanning
wmaster0  Interface doesn't support scanning.

See screenshot1.png. This shows how my ra0 device has dissapeared (before it was here as a Wireless Type (Tipo). Instead of that it shows now a ra0.bak device which is unknown (desconocido) and thus I can't edit or modify. Also the wmaster0 device has appeared, it seems to be my Edimax card, but it is considered as an Ethernet card and thus can't configure it to get connected to my Wi-fi router.

See screenshot2.png. This shows how the wmaster0 hardware device that has appeared is how my Linux recognises now the Edimax card (as an Ethernet card).

I'd need a solution to, at least, when this happens, be able to reconfigure my PCI card drivers without having to reinstall Fedora Core 6 from the beggining.

If you need the output of any other command or configuration, don't hesitate to let me know and I will add it to this post.