wifi realtek 8188 don't work.

[iamchrislaurie]

I got a wifi usb adapter and plugged it into the QLC+ rpi image. It did not fire up. When I reboot, I got loads of errors and I guessed the drivers did not load. On a normal RPI2 with jessie, loaded it does work. Following some inspiration from a different thread here I tried to copy the files from the the jessie distribution (and from the openelec drivers stuff) to /lib/firmware/rtlwifi

Now the drivers seem to load as I can boot without a bunch of errors, but the wifi does not come up.

Any ideas on how to get the wifi up?

[mcallegari]

What's the output of

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ifconfig -a

?

[iamchrislaurie]

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:c7:34:47
inet addr:192.168.0.252 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::ba27:ebff:fec7:3447/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:9405 (9.1 KiB) TX bytes:11347 (11.0 KiB)

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:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:100 (100.0 B) TX bytes:100 (100.0 B)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:e0:4c:81:8a:bd
inet addr:192.168.0.251 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:4cff:fe81:8abd/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:33 errors:0 dropped:38 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3474 (3.3 KiB) TX bytes:1230 (1.2 KiB)

Ping 192.168.0.251 does not respond.

[mcallegari]

A quick google search:
https://wiki.debian.org/rtl819x#Debian_7_.22Wheezy.22

I don't suggest to manually install firmware binaries unless not officially supported by the distro.
In this case there is a package for Wheezy, and you should follow that way.

Please remove the files you installed manually and try the above, then let us know if it works

[iamchrislaurie]

Thanks, Massimo

I removed the stuff I copied manually, and followed the instructions on that page. I now have a whole new set of driver files in the /lib/firmware/rtlwifi directory.

The results are essentially the same - the rpi boots with a message failed to bring up wlan. ifconfig is as before and the pi is not reachable over the nertwork to the wlan adress (192.168.0.251).

What is interesting for me as that a ping to 192.168.0.251 on the pi from the command line does show the wlan0 responding.

[mcallegari]

Ok, so there might be something wrong in the actual SSID connection.
Bringing up the interface is just the first step.
Then you have to connect to an access point, with the proper WPA/WEP authentication.

I'd say try these other things:
- check the specific wifi status with the wireless-tools. The equvalent of ifconfig is:

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iwconfig wlan0

- perform a network scan from the RPi. The command should be:

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iwlist wlan0 scan

See if it produces any output
- double check your SSID+auth settings. They should be in

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/etc/network/interfaces

Take some time to read these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_tools_for_Linux
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse (the command line part of course)

[Frank]

Hello iamchrislaurie,

if I get problems with a wifi connection, I manually edit the file /etc/network/interfaces

for instance using nano

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nano /etc/network/interfaces

(I'm assuming you are connected using the ethernet cable at the moment...)

It's content should be:

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auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.0.252
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  gateway 192.168.178.1
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
  wpa-ssid >>SSID here<<
  wpa-psk >>password here<<

of course without the ">>" and "<<".

The number "178" (line: gateway 192.168.178.1) is MY individual number (subnet or so) which I get from my router...

After that, a

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service networking restart

avoids the necessary reboot, but you can use the command "reboot" instead of course...

If I want to change the wifi stick (if at earlier time I'd used an other one), I have to change "wlan0" to "wlan1" (... or "wlan2") at the two lines above! I think that the OS remembers all the hardware that was used before! So try this out, please...

Frank

[mcallegari]

If I want to change the wifi stick (if at earlier time I'd used an other one), I have to change "wlan0" to "wlan1" (... or "wlan2") at the two lines above! I think that the OS remembers all the hardware that was used before! So try this out, please...

This behaviour is normal and it's written in the PDF user guide (3rd Q&A).
You need to remove or edit the file

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/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

[Frank]

Hi Massimo,

thank you for the completion / correction of my notes concerning the problems iamchrislaurie reported.

Your reference to the 3rd Q&A (inside the users guide) - I used before too to solve a quite other problem concerning a missing connection to the network - isn't understandable for me right now...

As described there, this deleting (of 70-persistent-net.rules) is necessary when the whole SD card is moved to an other RPi and therefore no ethernet connection is present firstly...

What I described above was meant for that case, if and when a "new" USB wifi stick is used after the RPi (QLC+) was already configured successfully concerning the wifi network connection.

If that 3rd Q&A is useful for any replacement of the USB wifi too (while the SD card remains the same), then it could be a good idea to describe this step inside the users guide. Actually I don't believe that the users guide involves this "problem"...

Many thanks again for your fast assistance all the time!

Best regards
Frank