Arch / Manjaro friendly wifi dongle
I have just moved to a house where I can't get an Ethernet connection to the broadband 'modem' so I need to finally adopt a wifi setup to connect my two desktops and random Raspberry Pi and Arduinos to the 'modem' & the internet. That raises two problems: I don't know anything about wifi except for my Acer Nitro 5 just asked for a password then worked. The only brand of wifi hardware sold by any of the local shops is TP-Link brand. I have one of their Archer T3U AC1300 dongles that is listed as might work. I tried to build it on the laptop with aur but the package errors with 'ERROR: Missing xxx kernel headers for module rtl88x2bu/5.13.1r179.a2ac3b2' where xxx is one of a list including sys, srv, boot, home, etc, bin, rootfs-pkgs.txt, desktopfs-pkgs.txt, run, usr, lib, dev, lost+found, lib64, tmp, opt, proc, mnt, sbin, var, root I tried to build the driver on the desktop but makepkg immediately crashed because I have no internet connection. The laptop is 6 months more up-to-date than the desktops that have been in storage. What I'm looking for is 1. a way to build the driver for the Archer T3U and/or 2. the make/model of a dongle that will work and/or 3. other options? I have tried Ether of Power setup but the basement my daughter has relegated me to is on a different circuit to the rest of the house. please help mick in the dungeon
On 1/27/23 18:02, mick howe wrote:
I have just moved to a house where I can't get an Ethernet connection to the broadband 'modem' so I need to finally adopt a wifi setup to ... listed as might work. I tried to build it on the laptop with aur but
1. a way to build the driver for the Archer T3U and/or
3. other options? I have tried Ether of Power setup but the basement my daughter has
(i) I gather from above that the in kernel rtl88 driver doesn't work for usb. My loose recollection is that there is some support for in-kernel modules for some mediatek dongles - details need to be checked. This may be helpful: https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_a... (2) to build kernel modules you need to install the kernel headers package for whatever kernel you want to build against - e.g. pacman -Syu linux-headers (3) Since ether over power didnt work would it work to add a second access point closer even if not all the way? 3.1) best option would be wired - if you can run it far enough to give you signal where you need it. I'm sure you know but adding for completeness - Its super straightforward to do that - just get any wifi router and connect LAN ports - turn of dhcp to avoid problems - give it static ip - and same SSID(s) as primary. 3.2) Alternatively, a wireless extender instead of wired (or add 2 or more mesh if you want to keep pushing extenders). Will cut your bandwidth in half unfortunately but may help. regards, gene
On 1/27/23 18:43, Genes Lists wrote:
(3) Since ether over power didnt work would it work to add a second access point closer even if not all the way?
duh sorry - brain fart - ignore that - lol ... obviously no help at all without working wifi. where's my coffee ... gene
I do have wifi on my laptop getting internet but I haven't tried to use it beyond email and browsing the web. I am now struggling to to wrap my mind around new concepts, I'm 70 y.o. and in poor health, the cause of my moving 1000 km from where I had everything working and had contacts. mick in hellharbour On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 at 10:46, Genes Lists <lists@sapience.com> wrote:
On 1/27/23 18:43, Genes Lists wrote:
(3) Since ether over power didnt work would it work to add a second access point closer even if not all the way?
duh sorry - brain fart - ignore that - lol ... obviously no help at all without working wifi. where's my coffee ...
gene
It's worth checking if this patch made it - sorry haven't had a chance to check but if so, then the in-kernel driver for realtec dongle may just work out of the box for some of the chipsets: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220518082318.3898514-1-s.hauer@pengutronix.de... regards, gene
On 1/27/23 19:02, Genes Lists wrote:
It's worth checking if this patch made it - sorry haven't had a chance to check but if so, then the in-kernel driver for realtec dongle may just work out of the box for some of the chipsets:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220518082318.3898514-1-s.hauer@pengutronix.de...
regards,
gene
Looks like a series of patches are in kernel as of December 2nd. e.g. this one looks like might support the dongle you mentioned - certainly worth a try: commit 45794099f5e1d7abc5eb07e6eec7e1e5c6cb540d Author: Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de> Date: Fri Dec 2 09:12:22 2022 +0100 wifi: rtw88: Add rtw8822bu chipset support Add support for the rtw8822bu chipset based on https://github.com/ulli-kroll/rtw88-usb.git
Sounds promising if I can sneak into the house with my ether cable while my daughter is at work. mick in hellharbour On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 at 11:21, Genes Lists <lists@sapience.com> wrote:
On 1/27/23 19:02, Genes Lists wrote:
It's worth checking if this patch made it - sorry haven't had a chance to check but if so, then the in-kernel driver for realtec dongle may just work out of the box for some of the chipsets:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220518082318.3898514-1-s.hauer@pengutronix.de...
regards,
gene
Looks like a series of patches are in kernel as of December 2nd.
e.g. this one looks like might support the dongle you mentioned - certainly worth a try:
commit 45794099f5e1d7abc5eb07e6eec7e1e5c6cb540d Author: Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de> Date: Fri Dec 2 09:12:22 2022 +0100
wifi: rtw88: Add rtw8822bu chipset support
Add support for the rtw8822bu chipset based on https://github.com/ulli-kroll/rtw88-usb.git
On 1/27/23 22:45, mick howe wrote:
Sounds promising if I can sneak into the house with my ether cable while my daughter is at work. mick in hellharbour
Good luck - let us know how things work out. gene
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Genes Lists
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mick howe