Netgear N150 Wireless USB Microadapter on the Raspberry Pi

[Patschi]

I wanted a small wlan stick, so I decided to buy the Netgear N150 Wireless USB Microadapter. The problem is now that this stick isn't supported on the Raspberry Pi. So I found a german article how to get it working: http://tamcore.eu/raspberry-pi-archlinu ... -chipsatz/

If you're interested which stick I'm exactly using, you can use the amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-Wireless- ... 004VDR37K/

I tried it but first, when I was trying to compile, it was missing the /lib/modules/3.1.9+/build/ folder. Because I only found linux-headers-3.2.0-rpi with aptitude search I installed it and copied the build/ folder from the 3.2.0 to 3.1.9+. Now it compiled successfully. I already installed the module for it but it seems, there is a problem...

When I put in the stick it says:

[ 6.050768] usb 1-1.3: new high speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[ 6.172912] usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=0846, idProduct=9041
[ 6.190517] usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 6.200234] usb 1-1.3: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[ 6.226801] usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer: Realtek
[ 6.240551] usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001

But there is no "wlan0" interface in "ifconfig". I don't know if I have to setup something to get it work.
The owner of this article said, that his stick is working without problems - so it also have to work on mine. The different is that he wrote the article for ArchLinux and I have the latest Debia Wheezy (Raspbian).

I hope someone can also help me with this problem. Thank you very much!

[redhawk]

Try: modprobe rtl8192cu
and reboot with: init 6

Do you have a wlan0 interface now??

Richard S.

[Patschi]

I tried it right now - seems not to work.

[redhawk]

I assume the chipset for your dongle is rtl8192cu however I could be wrong which is why it didn't work.
Check the following article http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi for help on wifi dongles and how to install them.
Once the wlan0 interface is working the next stage is setting up your wifi to connect to your router, for this you need wpa_supplicant for wpa/wpa2 encryption otherwise use iwconfig for unsecure / wep.

Richard S.

[Patschi]

The from my first post says, that it is the RTL8188CUS chipset.

[Montala]

I assume the chipset for your dongle is rtl8192cu however I could be wrong which is why it didn't work.
Check the following article http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi for help on wifi dongles and how to install them.
Once the wlan0 interface is working the next stage is setting up your wifi to connect to your router, for this you need wpa_supplicant for wpa/wpa2 encryption otherwise use iwconfig for unsecure / wep.

Richard S.

Hi Richard, I understood that everything required is now included in the latest 'official' Raspbian "wheezy" release... or isn't that in fact the case?

It has even been said that some 'dongles' work, 'straight out of the box', but unfortunately that doesn't always appear to happen!

[Patschi]

Well & how I can get the usb dongle get working on my Raspberry Pi?

[redhawk]

Someone created an install script for RTL8188CUS chipset wifi dongles you could try that and see if it works - http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 42#p128642

Richard S.

[Patschi]

Worked like a charm!! Thanks!!

[Squonk42]

I had to connect to a WEP network I know, this isn't the best for security, but I have no choice: my dumb Wifi printer doesn't support WPA

For WEP authentication, you need to enter a password containing either:

• 10 or 26 hexadecimal (0 to 9, A to F) characters only
• an "s:" prefix, followed by your password in clear (ASCII) containing either 5 or 13 characters

This is not explicitely checked by the script, maybe it should in a future revision?

Otherwise, worked like a charm on Raspbian with N150, installing fromSD, thanks!

[MrEngman]

I had to connect to a WEP network I know, this isn't the best for security, but I have no choice: my dumb Wifi printer doesn't support WPA

For WEP authentication, you need to enter a password containing either:

• 10 or 26 hexadecimal (0 to 9, A to F) characters only
• an "s:" prefix, followed by your password in clear (ASCII) containing either 5 or 13 characters

This is not explicitely checked by the script, maybe it should in a future revision?

Otherwise, worked like a charm on Raspbian with N150, installing fromSD, thanks!

Interesting suggestion. But then you have to tell the script whether it is using 64 or 128 bit encription. What if the user gets this wrong? How do you check this is correct?

There are quite a few things I think it would be useful to do. May be alter the security mode and set a new ssid and password or change the ssid and/or the password for the current security mode for example.

Unfortunately I don't understand the commands sufficiently that could be used to do these sorts of things.

At least the script does ask you to verify your ssid and password are correct so that will just have to do for now.

MrEngman

[Squonk42]

Interesting suggestion. But then you have to tell the script whether it is using 64 or 128 bit encription. What if the user gets this wrong? How do you check this is correct?

You can use "sed" to check a variable for hexadecimal contents and length of 10 characters:

echo "$a" | grep "^[0-9a-fA-F]\{10\}$" >/dev/null 2>&1

In plain English, this translates to:

• Starting at the very beginning of the string ("^")
• Check for a character between "0" and "9", "a" and "f" or "A" and "F" (i.e. an hexadecimal character)
• That repeats exactly 10 times ("{10}", the backslashes are to escape shell meaning)
• Finishing the string ("$")

The "> /dev/null 2>&1" is to redirect both standard and error output to nothing. You can check the result with the "$?" variable: "0" is ok, "1" is error.