Wifi with DWA-131 E1 dongle

[Standarduser]

It's USB 2.0 with chipset Ralink RT7601

[pavel]

chipset Ralink RT7601

Starting from Linux 4.2, this chipset is supported by the mt7601u driver.

I've just enabled this driver in my patches with this commit and rebuilt my Debian SD card image. It can be downloaded from this link. Could you give it a try?

[Standarduser]

Hi pavel,

thanx for you help, but this didn't solve the problem. The image itself is working but wlan0 is still not available in ifconfig.

Do I have to do something more than just use your Image?

[Standarduser]

Looks like the data sheet is not correct. Using

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lsusb

and after

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update-isbids

found out that its this:

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Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188EUS 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter

[pavel]

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Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188EUS 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter

I tried to enable the r8188eu driver but without much success. It's not in the main portion of the Linux kernel tree. It's in the Linux Staging tree. When I enabled staging and r8188eu, other parts stopped building.

I'd suggest to look for a WiFi adapter with better Linux compatibility.

[Standarduser]

What's about

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Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8172 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter

Is that easier? And could you tell me where I can get such informations?

[pavel]

What's about

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Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8172 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter

Is that easier? And could you tell me where I can get such informations?

It's almost the same.

From what I've seen so far, the Realtek chipsets are not very Linux friendly. The Realtek drivers that are in the Linux kernel tree are mostly broken and/or only have limited functionality. The drivers provided by Realtek are old and can't be built out of the box with the latest Linux versions. I've found all the necessary patches for the rtl8192cu but it's incompatible with the Linux mac80211 stack. So, it can't be used with hostapd provided by Debian or other distributions. I had to invent a quite hairy script that decides which version of hostapd to run.

I'm much happier with a WiFi adapter based on the MediaTek/Ralink RT5370 chipset:
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/produc ... id=2133900

[Standarduser]

I'm much happier with a WiFi adapter based on the MediaTek/Ralink RT5370 chipset:
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/produc ... id=2133900

Has your recommendation any restrictions or would recommend every (normal) WiFi Stick based on RT5370?
I'm looking specially for sticks with external antenna and good availability in Germany

[pavel]

Has your recommendation any restrictions or would recommend every (normal) WiFi Stick based on RT5370?

I used only one model based on this chipset. I could only hope that other WiFi adapters based on the same chipset should also be OK.

I'm looking specially for sticks with external antenna and good availability in Germany

For less than 10 euros, TP-Link TL-WN722N looks like a good WiFi adapter that matches your requirements:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B002SZEOLG

It's based on the Atheros AR9271 chipset and there are some interesting reviews of its performance under Linux:
https://befinitiv.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... d-firmware
http://blog.everpi.net/2015/10/raspberr ... n722n.html

The last articles mentions a couple of known issue but they don't look like show stoppers:

• handle only up to 7 clients
• transfer rate instabilities

What is not clear is how the antenna is oriented when this adapter is connected to Red Pitaya.

[Standarduser]

Thank you very much. I think I will adjourn the WiFi plan until WiFi assistant is released and then give it a new try with your recommended chipset. I have no urgent need now for that and wanted only to test some features and find out how easy it is to switch from client to AP and back.

BTW, is already a release date in sight?