installing idVendor = 0bda idProduct = 8179 wifi card to raspberrypi

I have been using Raspberry pi for a quite a long time now. I bought it when I was in England for some time and got my hands on the early versions of it as it was previously available in England only.

So today I am going to explain about making an Airplay device from Raspberrypi.

First Things First.

Please check the Compatibility list to get the verified hardware only.

So now lets move to installation.

Install Raspian and boot the device.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get update
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo reboot

Insert the usb Wifi dongle and check if its recognized.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ dmesg | more
[3.326389] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[3.447524] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8179
[3.465540] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[3.479331] usb 1-1.2: Product: 802.11n NIC
[3.485392] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Realtek

Interesting part is idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8179

This is not a native wifi card and will not be working on its on. So we need modification.

Check the kernel version you have

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uname -r
3.12.22+

To make it work just download the kernel object (.ko) file which is the compiled module driver for the kernel.

For raspbian image: 2014-06-20-wheezy-raspbian.img
8188eu.ko & firmware (Compiled in 2014-06) (Working in kernel Linux raspberrypi 3.12.22+ #691 PREEMPT)

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo install -p -m 644 8188eu.ko /lib/modules/3.12.22+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo insmod /lib/modules/3.12.22+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/8188eu.ko
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo cp rtl8188eufw.bin /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo depmod -a
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ reboot

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig

Now wlan0 can be seen and will be working properly.