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 sub 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.

INSERT GUIDE ABOUT HOW TO RECOMPILE KERNEL WITH NEW DRIVERS HERE

Once we've recompiled the kernel with the new drivers, we need to install the new firmware for our wireless adapter.