Need the port the RTL8192CU wifi driver from Picore 11.x

[ovacikar]

Hello all.

I have concluded my RTL8192CU issues with newer picore releases are all caused by newer driver. I need to port the exact 11.x driver / firmware to a recent picore release 13.1 or later

In Mesh wifi networks where a single Access Point name is served by multiple base stations, the performance / stability of the recent driver is very poor, it even takes multiple  attempts to connect. I gave up troubleshooting new picore versions at this point.

The working driver from 11.x shows Link Quality between 0-100, where the bad new drivers show a 0-70 scale. So the one in use in 11.x is definitely a different driver.

Code: [Select]


Linux pi 4.19.81-piCore #1 Sun Nov 3 14:08:10 UTC 2019 armv6l GNU/Linux


wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"redacted "  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
          Bit Rate:72.2 Mb/s   Sensitivity:0/0
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=94/100  Noise level=0/100
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
 modinfo 8192cu
filename:       /lib/modules/4.19.81-piCore/kernel.tclocal/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl8192cu/8192cu.ko

author:         Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
description:    Realtek Wireless Lan Driver
license:        GPL
parm:           rtw_notch_filter:0:Disable, 1:Enable, 2:Enable only for P2P
parm:           rtw_force_iol:Force to enable IOL
parm:           rtw_max_roaming_times:The max roaming times to try
parm:           if2name:The default name to allocate for second interface
parm:           ifname:The default name to allocate for first interface
parm:           rtw_ips_mode:The default IPS mode
version:        v4.0.2_9000.20130911


[Rich]

Hi ovacikar
I just looked at the kernel sources on my TC10 system
and the RTL8192CU has its own subdirectory:

Code: [Select]

linux-4.19.10/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/You might get away with copying that directory from piCore 11.x source
and use it to replace that directory in a later source package.

Then recompile.

[ovacikar]

Thanks for the guidance rich.

I have never compiled kernel / module for picore. I only have a Rpi model B  and a 8gb sdcard. Can it handle this task at all? IF not, do I need to learn cross compiling on a Virtual Machine or something?

[Paul_123]

Have you tried the latest 15.x which is kernel 6.6.y.  The kernel wifi changes quite a bit between releases.  Odds that you can just copy it is very low.

With the rtl8129cu, there is a chance that firmware could be causing a problem.  Look at dmesg.  Does it show firmware getting loaded?   Do you even have the realtek firmware extension loaded?
Issues like this is a primary reason why I quit supporting Realtek and their crappy product.  Realek releases driver source, but its up to the kernel community to really make them work.   

[ovacikar]

I tried them 13.1, 14 and 15 all having crappy performance in these mesh wifi networks. At home the new driver works perfectly fine. Thats why I suspect nobody complains about it .
picore 12 has the same old driver as 11.

[Paul_123]

Unfortunately The driver you want was removed during the release of kernel 5.8.  The 8192cu is a very old chipset, and likely only gets minimal work.   I would suggest you get a new wifi adapter for work.

[ovacikar]

I ended up compiling wireguard module on picore 12 and getting 2x throughput and 100 signal quality compared to picore 15.x