A year and a half ago, I bought a laptop that came with a Realtek RTL8852BE wireless card.

At the time, Linux did not include its drivers, and you needed to build them with DKMS. Even Windows 11 did not work with it out of the box after formatting the pre-installed copy.

So, at the time, I ended up buying an Intel AX200, but I still kept the other card in a closet.

I am often annoyed that sharing files from my Android phone to my Linux desktop is always harder than it should be. At least Python’s http.server saves the day for the way around.

Then, today, I remembered Bluetooth, which the card I had lying around supports!

My motherboard (an ASRock B650 PG Lightning) has a m.2 slot for WiFi cards, so I decided to give it a try.

I am currently on Debian trixie with a 6.12.22 kernel. It is the current Debian testing, but it is expected to become the new stable in a few months.

To my surprise, the WiFi worked immediately without installing anything! However, I must say I already had the firmware-realtek package, as my Ethernet card was also made by Realtek. Even the hotspot functionality worked.

So, no more git cloning, DKMS, etc 🎉.

For Bluetooth, I was not as lucky. It could see my phone, but it failed to pair. And my phone could not find my PC either.

However, I also have an ancient Bluetooth USB stick based on a Broadcom BCM2045 module. Even though it is old, it immediately worked!

I still remember the old Windows XP days, when I had to install the Widcomm Bluetooth stack. Luckily, it is just an old memory 😄.

Nel precedente articolo avevo descritto un po’ la mia prima esperienza con il wireless a 5GHz su Linux.

Avevo deciso di chiedere il reso per la chiavetta che avevo comprato, ed eventualmente aspettare fino a quando non avrei trovato un prodotto migliore con prezzo inferiore alla soglia psicologica dei 20€, dovuta al fatto che non mi è così indispensabile il wireless AC.

Tuttavia ho fatto lo stesso delle ricerche e sul forum della Raspberry Pi avevo trovato che la Edimax EW-7811UTC è supportata molto bene, e consente anche la creazione di Access Point. Così, visto che costava 20,09€ su Amazon, e che avevo avuto il rimborso totale di quella vecchia, ho deciso di comprarla.

Questa mattina è arrivata e ho subito proceduto a fare alcune prove con il mio computer.

La chiavetta è basata, secondo WikiDevi, sul chip Realtek RTL8811AU. Sebbene ci siano dei driver per Linux completamente Open Source e non richiedono neppure un firmware binario, il tree ufficiale non li include. … [Leggi il resto]