PINE64
RTL8811AU usb wifi for pbpro - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: RTL8811AU usb wifi for pbpro (/showthread.php?tid=15455)



RTL8811AU usb wifi for pbpro - vlut - 12-02-2021

Hello Everyone,

I had a TP-Link AC600 T2U Nano  (chipset REALTEK RTL8811AU) wifi usb dongle laying around and I wanted to use it with my PineBook Pro to improve a bit my wifi.

After a bit of time looking around I managed to find a solution to make it work  so I decided to share the solution I found. 

I will start by saying three things:
1: to anyone wanting to buy a USB WIFI dongle for use with any kind of linux device I would advise to read https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi . In particular I would advise  AGAINST buying a usb wifi dongle that has a REALTEK chipset.

2: this is my first post on this forum, maybe I am doing it wrong but please be gentle. 

3: this solution is very similar to https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14767 (which concerns a similar chipset : the RTL8812AU).

Solution:
Get the driver from https://github.com/morrownr/8821au-20210708
Follow instructions 1 to 7 from the README
Before executing #sudo ./install_driver.sh modify the Makefile as follows: 
find the lines
Code:
SUBARCH := $(shell uname -m | sed -e s/i.86/i386/)
ARCH ?= $(SUBARCH)
 and replace them with 
Code:
SUBARCH := $(shell uname -m | sed -e s/i.86/i386/)
# ARCH ?= $(SUBARCH)
ARCH := 'arm64'
As explained in https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14767 for a similar driver, this modification is necessary because otherwise the architecture is detected as 'aarch64' and the Makefile does not recognise this architecture.

Then run 
Code:
sudo ./install_driver.sh

I had no errors and after a reboot my USB wifi was recognised and fully functionnal.
I hope this might help someone someday.

Note: this should work for similar wifi chipsets by replacing the driver https://github.com/morrownr/8821au-20210708 by the relevant one in https://github.com/morrownr .