Assistance required recompiling LibreELEC with rtl88x2bu driver

paulrking08 · July 26, 2021 at 1:19 PM

Hi everybody

I have been using LibreElec for quite some time and the vanilla install has always been perfect for me. But I am building a new box for my daughter and with the box connected using ethernet everything is wonderful. However, she has an cheap USB Wifi adapter (RTL88x2BU) which is not supported. Being rather scrooge-like rather than buy her a new USB Adadpter I thought I would have a go at building the module myself.

First off on one of my servers (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) to get some proof that this approach was going to work I cloned GitHub - cilynx/rtl88x2bu: rtl88x2bu driver updated for current kernels.

Then I used dkms to add, build and install the module and finally ran a modprobe rtl88x2bu. Plugged in the USB Adapter and hey-presto I have a working Wireless Adapter on my server

This small success set me off an a number of abortive attempts to build LibreElec locally but after a few attempts I now have an Ubuntu 18.04 LTS VirtualBox that will cleanly build Libreleec 9.2 Generic x86_64 and I have tested this by installing on my daughters machine and all is fine and dandy with the Ethernet connection.

Small steps being the watch word I then followed one of the thread on this forum to try to build an rtl88x2bu module. Under ~/http://LibreELEC.tv/packages/ I created a folder RTL88x2BU and in that folder created a package.mk containing the following

Code

PKG_NAME="RTL88x2BU"
PKG_VERSION="439c7dbd9e43acd91d5704a50b68647716c52505"
PKG_LICENSE="GPL"
PKG_SITE="https://github.com/cilynx/rtl88x2bu"
PKG_URL="https://github.com/cilynx/rtl88x2bu/archive/$PKG_VERSION.tar.gz"
PKG_DEPENDS_TARGET="toolchain linux"
PKG_NEED_UNPACK="$LINUX_DEPENDS"
PKG_LONGDESC="Realtek RTL88x2BU Linux driver"
PKG_IS_KERNEL_PKG="yes"

pre_make_target() {
  unset LDFLAGS
}

make_target() {
  make V=1 \
       ARCH=$TARGET_KERNEL_ARCH \
       KSRC=$(kernel_path) \
       CROSS_COMPILE=$TARGET_KERNEL_PREFIX \
       CONFIG_POWER_SAVING=n
}

makeinstall_target() {
  mkdir -p $INSTALL/$(get_full_module_dir)/$PKG_NAME
    cp *.ko $INSTALL/$(get_full_module_dir)/$PKG_NAME
}

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I edited distributions/LibreELEC/options and added the new driver
ADDITIONAL_DRIVERS="RTL8192CU RTL8192DU RTL8192EU RTL8188EU RTL8812AU RTL88x2BU"

I then rebuilt the LibreElec using "PROJECT=Generic ARCH=x86_64 make image" which threw no errors and when it had completed I had a number of files under ~/http://LibreELEC.tv/build.LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-9.2-devel/RTL88x2BU-439c7dbd9e43acd91d5704a50b68647716c52505 including a 88x2bu.ko

Code

-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 4471088 Jul 26 10:23 88x2bu.ko
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul    1434 Jul 26 10:23 88x2bu.mod.c
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul    3920 Jul 26 10:23 88x2bu.mod.o
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 4476592 Jul 26 10:23 88x2bu.o
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     268 Nov 14  2020 build.sh
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul      64 Nov 14  2020 clean
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul    4096 Jul 26 10:23 core
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     237 Nov 14  2020 dkms.conf
drwxrwxr-x 9 paul paul    4096 Jul 26 10:23 hal
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul    1902 Nov 14  2020 halmac.mk
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul      54 Nov 14  2020 ifcfg-wlan0
drwxrwxr-x 5 paul paul   12288 Nov 14  2020 include
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     130 Nov 14  2020 Kconfig
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul   18092 Nov 14  2020 LICENSE
-rwxrwxr-x 1 paul paul   70373 Nov 14  2020 Makefile
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     133 Jul 26 10:23 modules.order
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul       0 Jul 26 10:23 Module.symvers
drwxrwxr-x 3 paul paul    4096 Jul 26 10:23 os_dep
drwxrwxr-x 2 paul paul    4096 Jul 26 10:23 platform
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul    5445 Nov 14  2020 README.md
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul    1920 Nov 14  2020 rtl8822b.mk
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     423 Nov 14  2020 runwpa
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul     294 Nov 14  2020 wlan0dhcp

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I then burned the new img file to USB and installed LibreElec as normal

Sadly, plugging in the USB Adapter had no effect and no Wifi connections are showing

As far as I can see there are no new modules under /lib/modules/5.1.16 (there are five RTL folders but they were there previously)

I have obviously missed or mucked up something but for the life of me cannot see what

Any assistance would be most appreciated

Regards

Paul

**mglae** · July 26, 2021 at 4:17 PM

Nothing obvious. Did you install the correct image?

To avoid a new installation just drop the new img to /storage/.update or use the "Update" samba share and reboot.

paulrking08 · July 26, 2021 at 4:59 PM

Hi mglae

Just to be on the safe side I purged the target folder and rebuilt LibreElec using "PROJECT=Generic ARCH=x86_64 make image"

I dropped the new LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-9.2-devel-20210726153154-5d0330e.img.gz into the update folder (thanks for that, I would have been clean installing if not for the advice) but nothing seems to have changed. I was expecting to see my new module in /usr/lib/modules/5.1.16 but all I have there is

Code

LibreELEC:~ # ls -l /usr/lib/modules/5.1.16/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 RTL8188EU
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 RTL8192CU
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 RTL8192DU
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 RTL8192EU
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 RTL8812AU
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 bcm_sta
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 intel_nuc_led
drwxr-xr-x    9 root     root           180 Jul 26 15:49 kernel
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            62 Jul 26 15:49 modules.alias -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.alias
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            66 Jul 26 15:49 modules.alias.bin -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.alias.bin
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            64 Jul 26 15:49 modules.builtin -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.builtin
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            68 Jul 26 15:49 modules.builtin.bin -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.builtin.bin
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            60 Jul 26 15:49 modules.dep -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.dep
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            64 Jul 26 15:49 modules.dep.bin -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.dep.bin
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            64 Jul 26 15:49 modules.devname -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.devname
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            62 Jul 26 15:49 modules.order -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.order
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            64 Jul 26 15:49 modules.softdep -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.softdep
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            64 Jul 26 15:49 modules.symbols -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.symbols
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            68 Jul 26 15:49 modules.symbols.bin -> /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/modules/5.1.16/modules.symbols.bin
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root           100 Jul 26 15:49 nvidia

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paulrking08 · July 26, 2021 at 5:46 PM

Hi all

OK I seem to have moved on a bit, just thought I would update to save anyone wasting any time until I hit any other issues of course

I had updated distributions/LibreELEC/options and added the new driver

ADDITIONAL_DRIVERS="RTL8192CU RTL8192DU RTL8192EU RTL8188EU RTL8812AU RTL88x2BU"

It would seem that I have to do that in projects/Generic/options either as well or instead of.

Having rebuilt and updated my LibreElec I can now see the module in /usr/lib/modules/5.1.16/ (RTL88x2BU) and the wireless network is now available in the LibreElec GUI

I'll let you know how it goes

Thanks for your help

Regards

Paul

paulrking08 · July 27, 2021 at 10:13 AM

Morning all

24 hours on and everything seems to be rock solid. Getting between 80 and 120Mbps download and 30-40Mbps upload speed through the RTL88x2BU driver. No disconnects. Streaming from a remote source seems perfect

Thanks for the assistance

Regards

Paul

kjm1 · September 17, 2022 at 7:11 PM

Hi,I would be very happy, if someone could send me a module 88x2bu.ko for the

5.10.95 kernel in LibreELEC 10.0.2

Thanks kjm

Assistance required recompiling LibreELEC with rtl88x2bu driver

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