USB wi-fi adapter not found

# ifconfig -a

just in case it's showing up under some weird name (the RALink devices used to do this).

Is it in fact an RTL8188CUS? That ought to be supported:

# lsusb

should give more information too.

Shows only the eth0 and lo devices.

I don't know. As far as I know it is.

More than I posted? OK, here is -v output from lsusb. I don't know what any of this means.

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x0bda Realtek Semiconductor Corp. idProduct 0x8176 RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter bcdDevice 2.00 iManufacturer 1 iProduct 2 iSerial 3 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 46 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xa0 (Bus Powered) Remote Wakeup MaxPower 500mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 4 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x03 EP 3 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x84 EP 4 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes bInterval 1

Well, it depends on the exact image that you have what else you need to do. On a standard Raspbian you would need to add this:

auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

to your /etc/network/interfaces file.

and also make a /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file like this:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1

network={ ssid="your-ssid-herr" scan_ssid=1 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK psk="your-wpa-password-here" }

I don't think that's his problem -- the device isn't being configured incorrectly, it's not being recognised at all.

OK, this needs people who know the kernel better than I do. The problem does seem to be some combination of the device not being recognised and the firmware not being loaded; I can't see that you're doing anything wrong. You might get somewhere with something like ndiswrapper, but probably not.

RealTek alas has form for making huge changes in their hardware while not updating the model number at all. (Consider also

and the infamous 8139too rant.) I don't buy anything from them any more.

Actually, I did that already as shown by the ifup -a output. But it's not even getting that far. There's no wlan0 in /dev

yes. The generic steps to get to even as far as /dev/wlan0 involve the kernel recognising the USB device for what it actually is - lsusb is your friend here - and having a driver to load that understands it, and possibly some firmware somewhere that can be (presumably) downloaded into the device itself.

There is some info here

which suggest the 'proper' route should be to install at least a 3.6 kernel and 'compat-wireless'

AS I am only a lurker here and don't have a raspberry pi, I cant say whether or not Raspbian as currently configured has either that kernel or that package.

suggests strongly that this may be a package you have to download and compile for the Pi - its not in the standard distro. I am afraid that is as far as I can go. So to summarise:

The standard pi doesn't support that device. A late model kernel and a hand built 'compat-wireless' package built from source may. If you didn't want to get your hands dirty compiling source code you wouldn't have bought a pi anyway, would you?

:-) Good luck.

--
Ineptocracy 

(in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to  
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the  
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are  
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a  
diminishing number of producers.

Err, there's no such thing as /dev/wlan0. It will either show as an device in 'ifconfig -a' or it won't if something is missing, but it'll never appear in /dev

Question for the OP: was the dmesg printout you quoted all of the log, or was there more? We need to know if it's being associated with a driver or not.

Which is not Pi-specific. AFAIK [1] the drivers are built into recent (2013) Raspbian distros. Question for the OP: how old is your distro?

[1]

Err, that's not the RTL8188CUS - it's not even from the same manufacturer!

Might I gently suggest sticking to things you've done yourself or at least can research before posting? :)

Theo

[Declaration of experience: I've had the struggle to get the RTL8188CUS running on Ubuntu on a PC, but not on a Pi. My original reason for choosing this model is that it was supported by the Pi so drivers were available

- what got me in the end was trying to make it robust over kernel updates when using the vendor's driver source (if it broke, I couldn't remote into the machine to fix it). Never did succeed in the end.]

it was however instructions on how to build the wireless-compat package which allegedly includes drivers for that chip.

Read what I wrote. That was as far as research got me.

well it seems they are in fact not.

--
Ineptocracy 

(in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to  
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the  
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are  
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a  
diminishing number of producers.

On 18 Nov 2013 18:07:45 +0000 (GMT) in comp.sys.raspberry-pi, Theo Markettos wrote,

Thanks for the correction. My device is showing in neither ifconfig nor iwconfig. They both show only eth0 and lo.

There was a ton more, but nothing I could identify as having anything to do with that device. Here is the tail of the messages

[ 3.791498] hid-generic 0003:1C4F:0002.0002: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Device [USB USB Keykoard] on usb-bcm2708_usb-1.3/input1 [ 3.902574] usb 1-1.2.2: new high-speed USB device number 6 using dwc_otg [ 4.034868] usb 1-1.2.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8176 [ 4.053423] usb 1-1.2.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 4.067666] usb 1-1.2.2: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter [ 4.089235] usb 1-1.2.2: Manufacturer: Realtek [ 4.100352] usb 1-1.2.2: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001 [ 4.882888] udevd[122]: starting version 175 [ 10.072544] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): re-mounted. Opts: (null) [ 12.907792] mmc0: missed completion of cmd 18 DMA (512/512 [1]/[1]) - ignoring it [ 12.922007] mmc0: DMA IRQ 6 ignored - results were reset [ 12.944480] mmc0: missed completion of cmd 18 DMA (512/512 [1]/[1]) - ignoring it [ 12.958765] mmc0: DMA IRQ 6 ignored - results were reset [ 18.962592] Adding 102396k swap on /var/swap. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:102396k SS

That's the end.

I'm thinking now probably too old. I don't really know how to tell. Since I have a really slow internet connection, I bought a SD card from Element14 pre-loaded with raspbian. How do I list what drivers it includes? The first few messages after boot are:

[ 0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu [ 0.000000] Linux version 3.6.11+ (dc4@dc4-arm-01) (gcc version 4.7.2 20120731 (prerelease) (crosstool-NG linaro-1.13.1+bzr2458 - Linaro GCC 2012.08) ) #362 PREEMPT Tue Jan 22 14:52:21 GMT 2013 [ 0.000000] CPU: ARMv6-compatible processor [410fb767] revision 7 (ARMv7), cr=00c5387d [ 0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT nonaliasing instruction cache [ 0.000000] Machine: BCM2708

I guess I had better give in and download a fresh SD image.

This may be a dumb question but I am late to the conversation.

Do you have the driver file loaded in /lib/firmware/

I'm not sure but I think you may be looking for directories named RTL8192E and RTL8192SU for that particular chipset.

I know I had to load the firmware file manually for my early Pis to get my realtek wifi dongle to work and appear in ifconfig.

--
nev 
getting the wrong stick end since 1953

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 08:43:52 +0000 in comp.sys.raspberry-pi, nev young wrote,

Thanks for that clue.

Not the exact match, but yes I do maybe appear to have some matches for that as shown below. But first some questions: how in the world was I supposed to know to look there? The books I am reading say nothing about that. How am I supposed to guess that RTL8192 files are to be used with my RTL8188 device? For that matter, how is Linux supposed to know that? And last, are the files I list below what they ought to be?

I would gladly load the firmware file manually if I knew how and where to find it.

has only complete SD card images, no driver updates. Most instructions assume the RPi is connected to the internet and don't work so well when I am stuck downloading on a windows machine.

What I found:

david@raspberrypi ~ $ ls -l /lib/firmware/r*

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt2561.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt2561s.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt2661.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt2870.bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt3070.bin -> rt2870.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt3071.bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt3090.bin -> rt2860.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 Jun 12 2012 /lib/firmware/rt73.bin

/lib/firmware/rtl_nic: total 36

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2076 Jun 12 2012 rtl8105e-1.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1492 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168d-1.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1324 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168d-2.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5500 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168e-1.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3920 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168e-2.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3872 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168e-3.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3136 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168f-1.fw

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1232 Jun 12 2012 rtl8168f-2.fw

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi: total 272

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13540 Jun 12 2012 rtl8192cfw.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16014 Jun 12 2012 rtl8192cufw.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20526 Jun 12 2012 rtl8192defw.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 88856 Jun 12 2012 rtl8192sefw.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 129304 Jun 12 2012 rtl8712u.bin

I just Googled "linux hardware compatibility RTL8188" and the fifth result was

which says "rtl8192cu is a USB driver for RTL8192CU/RTL8188CU devices" So search for "install rtl8192cu" and the second result is which says "RTL8192U-based devices only: firmware is required to be manually supplied:" followed by instructions to install it. Could be what you need.