Supported wireless devices list

1st Official Post

    I've started this thread because yet another time driver for my RT2870-based dongle has been broken (not the frist time, I believe somewhere in mainline kernel). I have another dongle, RTL8821-based, but it isn't suppoted. Thus, I need another wireless USB dongle, but I do not know what exactly I need? Is there any list of supported chips? Can I use for instance CONFIG_RTL_CARDS from mainline kernel for reference or what else? The vast majority of cheap dongles are unsupported RTL8811/8821… I found some amount of RTL8188CU devices, but I'm not sure that they are supported in LE, though I see there are relevant CONFIG_RTL8XXXU and CONFIG_RTL8192CU kernel options.

    Upd: there is no /proc/config.gz and I was unable to find actual kernel .config to check for included drivers

    Edited once, last by beelze (June 7, 2020 at 2:39 PM).

    That's what I found (Realtek related):

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/RTL8188EU

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/RTL8192CU

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/RTL8192DU

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/RTL8192EU

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/RTL8812AU

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8180

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192c

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192ce

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192de

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192ee

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192se

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8723ae

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8723be

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8723com

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8821ae

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/staging/rtl8192u

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/staging/rtl8712

    /lib/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs

    Please note: some modules ffrom the list above may (or may not) also support some other devices. For instance, some RTL8812AU module builds I found support RTL8811AU as well. But some – aren't (at least that wasn't declared explicitly).

    Though, we still need the official list of supported wireless devices. At least because it is a high risk to bought unsupported dongle.

    • Official Post

    There is no official list. There will be no official list. Why? .. because we're a small team and we have many better (and much more interesting) things to spend our limited personal time on than generating innacurate lists of wireless dongle chipsets from manufacturers that fail to upstream support for their products to the Linux kernel. As most HTPC devices these days include a wireless chip that is normally supported (and using Ethernet with an HTPC device is strongly recommended anyway) it's also a declining issue. You may have other views, but that's generally the team opinion.

    Oh, thanks for your great work and excellent LE. Though, my intention was different – I'm wrote here not to force to do something or criticize anything, but just to ask for the help for «what dongle should I buy?». I'm using RT2870-based dongle for more than 10 years and one and only problem is that in some kernels (like current LE kernel, previous builds was unaffected) I periodically got the same «flush queue» error and I need to replug the dongle after that. Personally I see no benefits for using wired network instead of wireless – using dedicated 5GHz frequency. WoL perhaps? Someone may needed in this, of course…

    Sorry but I do not understand what are «most HTPC devices», especially x86_64 arch… Using the list of those «most devices» I can found what wireless chipset are used there. In fact, I'm just looking for any guidelines for choosing the dongle. Thanks :)

    Spent 20 mins on aliexpress trying to find any Ralink or Atheros 5GHz USB dongle but no luck at all :) Literally, there is almost nothing to buy except Realtek ;)

    There are very few Atheros-based and Ralink RT2* and RT3*-based USB dongles, 2.4GHz only. Please also note – all CONFIG_RT2800USB supported devices (RT2770, RT2870 & RT3070, RT3071 & RT3072) are ancient today and RT2870 driver is buggy.

    Also, I found small amount of Mediatek MT7610U and MT7612U-based dongles which are supported I believe. Perhaps it is sad, but support for Realtek devices is needed, in fact.

    • Official Post

    chewitt Can we do a device list, updated by users? Something like an initial post by an admin (like me :saint:), and all users can post answers, which devices work for them. Then the admin will add the device to the list at the initial post (device name, chipset, LE version, hardware, user name), and deletes the users post after this.

    PS: It's really hard (impossible?) to find a 5GHz device, which is not from Realtek. Many users have this problem.

    • Official Post

    We've always resisted the idea of creating a list with LE, because the last decade of forum support with OE/LE proves users are rubbish at contributing to a wiki, and forum threads where people post "it worked for me" always end up being hijacked with "it didn't work for me" posts and over time (years in a forum) the thread ends up with stale information. Sometimes it's better to deliberately have no information than wrong information.

    From time to time we also have moments of self-doubt about refusing to add more Realtek drivers, but then we do a kernel bump, they all break and we spend weeks hunting patches and new driver repo's, which holds up other activities, and then we're back where we started.

    Quote from beelze

    those are ancient devices mostly. not very (honestly, not at all) helpful when trying to buy a Wi-Fi dongle.

    LibreELEC:~ # find /lib64/modules/5.1.16/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ -name "*.ko"

    ls -l /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/firmware

    Cheapo wifi doggles won't tell you chipset they are using. LibreElec supports devices recognized by Linux 5.1.6 kernel, if related kernel modules are compiled and firmware packages loaded.

    Edited once, last by tokul (October 11, 2020 at 4:06 PM).

    So do RTL8812AU dongles work out of the box?