TP-LINK Archer T1U

1st Official Post

    Bought a new wireless dongle (TP-LINK Archer T1U) the other day for another project and just thought I'd give it a go with my Pi and LibreELEC. There doesn't seem to be a driver available for it though.

    Code
    rpi-lounge:~ # lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2357:0105
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMC9514 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

    journalctl -k output is here: IPAd

    I did a little bit of research and it seems that TP-LINK have a linux driver but only for kernel versions 2.6-3.16 (http://www.tp-link.com/en/download/Arche...l#Driver). Is there anything that can be done to get this available in LibreELEC?

    I'm only checking on the off chance that I end up thinking about reusing this dongle at some point in the future.

    Thanks in advance.

    • Official Post

    It uses the MT7610 chipset. I created an experimental driver package for the MT7610 back in OE days which "worked" in a loose sense. The drivers that are in circulation (can be found) are poorly written and are missing kernel interfaces for a range of wireless features. I've never transported that package over to LE as the radio configuration is ultimately dependent upon a config file which you'd need to edit to set things like region code and we'd need to embed into the read-only kernel image (spot the editing challenge). If that situation ever improves we can add the driver, but I wouldn't hold breath. If you have some dev skills and can custom build LE it should be possible to hack things in using my prior art, but IMHO it's not worth the hassle and you are better off picking up another card. Find something that uses the in-kernel ath9k driver, it's the best written one.

    Thanks chewitt.

    Luckily this wasn't its primary use case so I'll just have to remember not to switch it into the Pi.

    If I need to use a dongle I'll keep my eyes open for a 5Ghz one with supported chipset and drivers.