Orangepi Zero with mainline kernel

igorpec

First testing image for #orangepizero with a modern #kernel (4.13.8) was released. #WiFi works somehow (~10Mbits/s)
https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero/

paulg

I'm not having the "WiFi works somehow" experience. (wps_supplicant makes the connection to the AP but fails with no DCHP offer.) Could you please post more details on exactly which image you used and how you set up the wifi? Thanks.

igorpec

Image:
https://dl.armbian.com/orangepizero/Ubuntu_xenial_next.7z
Docs:
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Gu ... connect-to-wireless

paulg

Thank you! This does seem somewhat magical. The trick appears to be "nmtui-connect SSID" rather than other variations that are suppose to work (although I have not retested all the things that failed for me previously). Also I've had less luck with other images.

"Works" is of course relative. It is usable but I am not sure about speed, and there are lots of errors:
# dmesg | tail
[   16.825753] xradio_wlan mmc1:0001:1: received frame has no key status

I notice that Network Manager is only managing the wlan0 connection and not the eth0 connection, as can be seen with "nmcli device". This can be changed by commenting out references to eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces, as discussed at https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager and rebooting.

I am also having a problem that plugging or unplugging the the eth0 cable blocks a session on the wlan0 connection.  This (sometimes?) gets unblocked by a ping or ssh to the wlan0 address from a third machine.  There seems to be some improvement  when the connections are both managed by Network Manager, but it does not get completely fixed.

igorpec

"Works" is of course relative. It is usable but I am not sure about speed, and there are lots of errors:

This wifi chip/driver is utter shit and even we invested an insane amount of time into this problem, we could not make it perfect. If you want to understand details:

https://github.com/armbian/build/issues/688
https://github.com/armbian/build/issues/663
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/ ... s-xradio-st-cw1200/

The only real real solution is some proven USB wifi key.