RPi 4 4GB LibreELEC wifi antenna support

1st Official Post

    This is my first Raspberry Pi and my first experience with anything linux, i dont care about brutality, i just want you to know im not experienced.

    Anyways, I have recently bought the BrosTrend 650Mbps dual-band 5dBi Antenna for my RPi 4. It has come with the a linux driver on a disc in the package but who has a disk drive anymore? So a simple search brought me to this command:

     sh -c 'busybox wget deb.trendtechcn.com/install -O /tmp/install && sh /tmp/install' 

    I had a wired connection to the RPi as requested by the instructions and the driver keeps failing to install, am i missing something? is it a compatability issue? if so what wifi antenna do you recommend?

    Thank you.

    • Official Post

    The "install" script is checking for an OS that uses Debian packaging (Raspbian, OSMC, etc.) so it's not going to work on LE.

    Share "journalctl | paste" about 60 seconds aftter booting (with Etthernet connected) and we can see what chipset is in the device, and from there we can advise on the chances of it being supported in LE.

    Quote from chewitt

    The "install" script is checking for an OS that uses Debian packaging (Raspbian, OSMC, etc.) so it's not going to work on LE.

    Share "journalctl | paste" about 60 seconds aftter booting (with Etthernet connected) and we can see what chipset is in the device, and from there we can advise on the chances of it being supported in LE.

    Here is the output, i read the rules so hopefully this link is ok:

    http://ix.io/2oCG

    • Official Post

    Surprise, it's a Realtek: :P

    Code
    kernel: usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=c811, bcdDevice= 2.00
kernel: usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
kernel: usb 1-1.1: Product: 802.11ac NIC
kernel: usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Realtek
kernel: usb 1-1.1: SerialNumber: 123456

    I can't find the chipset anywhere (incl. shop descriptions). That's strange.

    PS: I don't trust those "Bros Trend" bros: SerialNumber: 123456 :D

    • Official Post

    It's an RTL8821CU device, which means it's not supported in-kernel and would need a vendor binary driver. Unfortunately we have a long history of refusing to add these to the distro as Realtek breeds new chips on a quarterly basis and they tend to break with each kernel bump and are a pain in the rear to maintain over time.