Edimax EW-7811Un driver

GoogleGroups
1

I just tested a Edimax EW-7811Un WiFi dongle on the BeagleBone Back the latest Debian image. It is reported for many user to work, but unfortunately it does not for me.

On my notebook with OpenSUSE it works out of the box. However, it seems there is a driver missing from the Debian BeagleBone image:

lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 7392:7811 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd EW-7811Un 802.11n Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8188CUS]

dmesg on BeagleBone (latest Debian testing image from yesterday)
[ 287.628336] usb 2-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 3
[ 378.891453] usb 2-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using musb-hdrc
[ 378.992624] usb 2-1.2: device v7392 p7811 is not supported
[ 378.998456] usb 2-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=7392, idProduct=7811
[ 378.998487] usb 2-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 378.998513] usb 2-1.2: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[ 378.998538] usb 2-1.2: Manufacturer: Realtek
[ 378.998562] usb 2-1.2: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
[ 379.006472] rtl8192cu: Chip version 0x10
[ 379.090006] rtl8192cu: MAC address: 80:1f:02:d0:ea:a7
[ 379.090053] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0
[ 379.090221] rtl_usb: rx_max_size 15360, rx_urb_num 8, in_ep 1
[ 379.090400] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[ 379.093330] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm ‘rtl_rc’
[ 379.097116] rtlwifi: wireless switch is on

dmesg on notebook (OpenSUSE Tumbleweed)

[48737.955403] usb 2-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
[48738.042037] usb 2-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=7392, idProduct=7811
[48738.042041] usb 2-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[48738.042043] usb 2-1.1: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[48738.042044] usb 2-1.1: Manufacturer: Realtek
[48738.042045] usb 2-1.1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
[48738.073650] rtl8192cu: Chip version 0x10
[48738.161285] rtl8192cu: MAC address: 80:1f:02:d0:ea:a7
[48738.161290] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0
[48738.161532] rtl_usb: rx_max_size 15360, rx_urb_num 8, in_ep 1
[48738.161564] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[48738.161828] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8192cu
[48738.162519] usb 2-1.1: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
[48738.162522] usb 2-1.1: Falling back to user helper
[48738.163283] rtlwifi: Loading alternative firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin
[48738.163466] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm ‘rtl_rc’
[48738.164162] rtlwifi: wireless switch is on

Any chances this can be fixed?

Regards
Alexander

2

Looking at your dmesg above, it looks like it "works" better then opensuse..

Either disable hdmi in /boot/uEnv.txt

cape_disable=capemgr.disable_partno=BB-BONELT-HDMI,BB-BONELT-HDMIN

or get a 3 inch usb extension cable.

Regards,

3

Either disable hdmi in /boot/uEnv.txt

cape_disable=capemgr.disable_partno=BB-BONELT-HDMI,BB-BONELT-HDMIN

or get a 3 inch usb extension cable.

I do not understand. Why would that make the dongle working?

4

The hdmi disable 'trick' was tested last week in a thread on this
list, the "usb extension cable" is recommend in a faq somewhere.

It's due to the hdmi gnd plane being too close to the usb connector
for these small usb wifi devices.

Regards,

5

Disabling HDMI worked. The dongle showed up as wlan1 so maybe it worked also before (I tried it with a small USB hub), but I did not see it (only checked wlan0).

Creating a AP worked fine using this script: https://github.com/hotice/AP-Hotspot – would be a good addition to the beaglebone Debian image.