Is there ANY usable USB WiFi dongle? (Raspberry Pi 1B)

    Hello all,
    I have four Raspberry Pi 1B machines (given in lieu of payment many years ago) which I recently dusted off to keep me sane during a live-in restoration project, and I am loving how well LibreElec works, even on these old machines.
    LE v9.2.6, kernel 4.19.127
    Does anyone have any success (I understand it can't be an "official" recommendation ;) ) with any USB WiFi dongle with this sort of system?
    I have tried two cheap dongles, which lsusb identifies as: a) MT7601U and b) RT2870/RT3070. These both work with AntiX and MXlinux - in fact, I use two "b"s to get wifi from neighbour and repeat it in the house that I am renovating; this is one reason why I can't easily use a wired connection ;-). When I plug them into the LE-Pi I get no recognition of their existence - maybe I am missing something? Do I have to enable them somewhere or install drivers?


    I know RT chipsets are a PITA, and that most of the cheap dongles use them. I just need something that works (fairly cheaply), they don't have to be fast, I'm not interested in high bandwidth or resolution (am using PAL composite video to an old CRT which will get junked as soon as the house is sold).
    I dare say people will recommend getting better hardware, but covid and the tax man (yes, it is a man) have metaphorically kicked me very hard in the metaphorical pocket area, and it would be good to find a cheap solution for these four machines to keep me going for a few more weeks.

    Thanks to all devs and helpful forum folks, LE is helping me greatly in very difficult times.
    All the best,
    Ian

    • Best Answer

    MT7601U has been enabled in kernel config since pre-LE days (OE) and should just work as I remember adding it. Most Atheros/Railtek chips are upstream and also supported, but perhaps are missing firmware. Occasionally the USB device IDs aren't mapped in the driver (hence it doesn't load) but that's not common on older chipsets as the IDs have mostly been added upstream long ago.

    Do the USB ports work if you connect a keyboard (checking for dead ports)?

    If yes, run "dmesg | paste" after a clean boot and connecting devices to USB ports, so we can see what the kernel logs - if anything - and share the URL(s) generated.

    Thanks for your quick response, that's very encouraging (as I have four such dongles, I think).
    The two (yes, only two!) USB ports both work - I have USB storage and a 2.4GHz keyboard/mouse dongle in them.
    Probably a silly question - how do I bring up a terminal to run that command?
    If you're talking about doing it remotely, I guess I'm out of luck for now as that's going to involve a lot of fiddling and cabling which I can't really do any time soon (I have no experience of SSH, and have no ethernet cable here, nor a router into which to plug the other end). I go back to civilisation on Sunday, though, so can work out how to do that then.
    Thanks,

    Ian

    I've been using an Edimax EW-7811Un USB Wi-Fi device with a Raspberry Pi Model B for years. This module seems to be very often mentioned on Pi forums as being cheap (around £8 UK) and recognised by Raspbian, and my LibreElec 9.2.3 install recognised it immediately.

    Thanks, both of you - you inspired me to persevere and I now have WiFi working (using either of those types of dongle)!
    I think the first one I tried - MT7601U - is a bit flaky.
    It is also possible that I just assumed (from other posts) that neither of them was going to work and kind of gave up on them.
    It is also entirely possible that I was looking for them in the wrong settings menu.
    Oops.
    Anyway, thanks, this will help a lot
    Ian