BeagleBone + WiFi - fail

[NormLane]

Well, I found a used Belkin F7D2101 on Amazon for $10 so I'm going to try it.

Thanks for all this effort.

[NormLane]

Do you actually have to boot with each dongle in turn? That would be a show stopper. This thing has to be able to boot up on it's own.

[bickhardt]

What do you mean?

You can boot with no dongle, but then you have to connect via USB or eth0 to access the bb. In the latter case you then have to do the "./connman-test connect <service> thing to use wifi after inserting the dongle when you don´t pull the eth-plug. Or pull the plug, then insert the dongle.

If you want the beaglebone to e.g. collect sensor data, then you can boot with no connection to the host, and insert the dongle later in which case it should start up the connection automatically, too.

[Jerrill]

I have also been trying to get the BeagleBone working with the Adafruit / Monoprice mini USB wireless adapter (Realtek RTL8192CU). I also have a Belkin F7D1101 USB wireless adapter (Realtek RTL8188SU) and an EDUP EP-MS150ND USB wireless adapter (Ralink RT5370).

The Adafruit is the only one that supports master (soft AP) mode which is what is required for tethering (connman's answer to not supporting ad hoc connections). This is a must-have feature for the application that I'm building the BeagleBone into. So, I was trying really hard to get the Adafruit adapter to work and not go buy another one hoping that the chip set supports master (AP, soft AP, etc.) mode since this information is usually hard to find on distributor and manufacturer websites.

Unfortunately I've seen A LOT of stability issues with BeagleBone / connman / and the Adafruit adapter. I've tried two different powered USB hubs with the Adafruit adapter and it didn't help. Even with line power via the DC jack I had very little success getting the adapter to work at all when connected directly to the BeagleBone USB port.

I've also seen issues where an established connection to an access point is disconnected after a while. Additionally, after deliberately disconnecting from an access point (within a few seconds) the device stops being able to scan for any access points at all until I reboot. I don't know if it's the device or the driver, but it's frustrating to say the least. I have another adapter (ASUS USB-N13 rev B1) with the same chipset on order to help determine if it's the device, the driver, connman, etc..

The Belkin adapter doesn't seem to suffer from the same disconnect problems, but it doesn't support master mode. If Adafruit ends up changing to a different device, make sure it supports master / soft AP mode!

[Jerrill]

I purchased an ASUS USB-N13 802.11n Network Adapter (rev. B1) [Realtek RTL8192CU] to see if it was the device or the driver and I am having the same sort of stability problems with the device. So, I'm beginning to suspect the RTL8192CU driver that ships with the BeagleBone. I looked at Realtek's website and they updated their Linux software on 7/4/2012. I'll give that a try and post back if it improves anything.

On another note, I've been using a Belkin F7D1101 USB wireless adapter (Realtek RTL8188SU) from Best Buy and it's been extremely stable.

More news to follow.

[greg1415]

My wifi adapter (http://www.adafruit.com/products/814) has been working much better after downloading the Nov 2012 driver from RealTek and compiling the module on the BeagleBone (Angstrom v2012.05 kernel 3.2.34).

RTL8192xC_USB_linux_v3.4.4_4749.20121105.zip from
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/Red ... 121105.zip

[captain_juno]

My wifi adapter (http://www.adafruit.com/products/814) has been working much better after downloading the Nov 2012 driver from RealTek and compiling the module on the BeagleBone (Angstrom v2012.05 kernel 3.2.34).

RTL8192xC_USB_linux_v3.4.4_4749.20121105.zip from
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/Red ... 121105.zip

greg1415, how did you compile the module on the BeagleBone? Did you cross-compile the driver for ARM and then copy it over?
Thanks.

[captain_juno]

I found your post, greg. Thanks, again!