Alternative Wi-Fi Adapters on the SBC

THIS GUIDE IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS

At the current moment, if you want to connect to a wireless network with you Single Board Computer, you really only have one feasible option. You can purchase the Phidgets Wi-Fi USB adapter or you can go through the very extensive process of recompiling the kernel to include all the drivers that you need.

The process of recompiling the kernel is not an easy or simple task, so I would highly recommend against doing anything like this unless you have some kind of intense hatred for our wireless adapter or some kind of bizarre love affair with another wireless adapter. But I assume you wouldn't be reading this unless you fit into either of those categories, so let's continue on.

The first thing you're going to want to do is select a Linux-compatible usb Wi-Fi adapter. Nowadays, nearly all wireless adapters are supported, but it's always worth doing a little bit of research before you go out and spend a bunch of money. If you're interested, there is a comprehensive list of known-working usb adapters on this website. But for the purpose of this guide, we're going to go through the process of adding the drivers for the Patriot Wireless N USB Adapter (Part# PCBOWAU2-N).

Linux wireless drivers depend on the chipset, not the actual product, so if we're going to have any hope of getting this wireless adapter to work on the SBC then we need to find out what chipset it uses. A quick internet search shows us that this particular wireless adapter uses either the r8192u_usb, r8712u, or rtl8192cu drivers. Now that we know what we're looking for, we can recompile the kernel with these new drivers.

Rather than re-iterating something that has already been explained elsewhere on the site, I'll just point you to this download package. It contains all the necessary files and information for recompiling the kernel. When you get to the part about installing new modules, you'll need to install the correct module for you wireless adapter. In my case, the Patriot Wireless N USB Adapter came with a cd that contained the correct module for me to install, so I did not have to go hunting for it on the internet. If you're not as lucky, you can try find the correct module on the Linux Wireless Website.

Once we've recompiled the kernel with the new drivers, we need to install the new firmware for our wireless adapter. This process is a little easier and usually just involves using "apt-get install". And once again, instead of re-iterating something that is better explained on another website, I'll point you to this link. In my case, I followed the guide to install the rtl8192u firmware.

After you've gone through all that, your wireless usb adapter should work just fine. If it doesn't, don't panic! This is a very complicated process and you might have messed up somewhere along the line. You can try following all the steps again. But please keep in mind that not all wireless adapters will work with the SBC. And if you happen to have one of those devices that jsut won't work, you might have to suck it up and purchase a Phidgets wireless usb adapter from our website. The benefit of using one of our adapters is that they work right out of the box!