[elrepo] Updated 8818AU driver, please

[Phil Perry]

On 05/03/18 20:29, Nick Howitt wrote:
> 
> 
> On 05/03/2018 20:24, Nick Howitt wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 05/03/2018 20:16, Phil Perry wrote:
>>> On 05/03/18 09:35, Nick Howitt wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I have a little USB 802.11ac dongle that I'm trying to get going in 
>>>> my server. lsusb gives:
>>>>
>>>>     Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bda:a811 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
>>>>     RTL8811AU 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WLAN Adapter
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've had a look at the current kmod driver which is version 
>>>> 8188eu-kmod-4.1.4_6773.20130222-3 and it does not cover the USB ID. 
>>>> Looking at the spec file in the src rpm it points me to 
>>>> https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8188eu but there is no useful update 
>>>> there.
>>>>
>>>> There appear to be a few sources for this driver such as 
>>>> https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux and 
>>>> https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8812AU which both cover the USB 
>>>> ID. Are you able to work your magic on one of these or any other 
>>>> relevant version you can find?
>>>>
>>>> Many thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>> Sure, I can take a look but it probably won't be before the weekend.
>>>
>>> Do either of those driver sources compile / work for you? The first 
>>> one looks more maintained so I'd probably start with that. I couldn't 
>>> find any linux driver/source on the Realtek website for your device, 
>>> only for Windows. I wonder where these (above) driver sources 
>>> originated?
>>>
>>> Phil
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> Hi Phil,
>> I have not tried compiling anything because I don't know what magic 
>> you do. I can give it a go and see what happens. I am puzzled about 
>> the sources because I tried searching github for rtl8188au and only 
>> the lwfinger sources appeared so I must searching incorrectly. I agree 
>> about the realtek site. I tried searching there as well.
>> Yours puzzled,
>> Nick
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>> elrepo at lists.elrepo.org
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> Google-fu working better: 
> https://github.com/zebulon2/rtl8812au-driver-5.2.20 and 
> https://github.com/gordboy/rtl8812au. I've never compiled dkms stuff 
> before ....
> 
> Nick

These are originally imported from Realtek. For example, see the Realtek 
changelog from your last link:

https://github.com/gordboy/rtl8812au/blob/a20632c756bd8bd84eb1cb93ac6609d11cd87343/Realtek_Changelog.txt

Still, briefly looking at the code I anticipate huge issues getting the 
code to build on el7. The issue is the code uses many conditionals based 
on the linux kernel version. The code views the el7 kernel as a 3.10 
kernel, but Red Hat has backported the wireless stack from kernel-4.11 
in el7.4 which is most likely why your builds fail.

To be brutally honest, it's generally not worth the effort trying to fix 
this, as even if we do fix it, it will break again next month when Red 
Hat release el7.5 with a backported wireless stack based upon 
kernel-4.14. Rather than me/us trying to fix it, I would request Realtek 
provide a driver that supports RHEL and let them do the hard work, or 
not buy their hardware.

I would put your unsupported hardware back in it's box and stick it on a 
shelf until such time as it is natively supported, and buy something 
that works out of the box. For example, I recently purchased an Edimax 
N150 nano USB adapter (EW-7811Un) for less than $10 on Amazon which is 
natively supported and works fine out of the box on el7 (based on 
Realtek RTL8188CUS chipset, uses the rtl8192cu driver), replacing a 
failing internal WiFi adapter in my laptop.