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Maniphest T577

TP-LINK usb wifi adapter not working
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Description

I use a TP-LINK w725n adapter which uses the RTL8188EU driver which surprisingly
doesn't come packaged with PureOS. From previous experience with other gnu/linux distros
i know that the linux kernel has that module built in. But when i search for the module in
PureOS, it doesn't exist.

I keep my system updated and currently have kernel version 4.18.0-1 installed. And this
still doesn't come with the driver loaded. The modules present that seem as if they should do the job are:
rtl8xxxu.ko and rtl8188ee.ko. But it doesn't.
I have to make to do with downloading and building the module from:
https://github.com/ilnanny/TL-WN725N-TP-Link-Debian
which is licensed under GPLv3. So surely licensing isn't an issue.

So it would be nice if the newer releases could include this driver as well.

Event Timeline

• purity created this task.Sep 17 2018, 05:06
• purity created this object with edit policy "All Users".
jonas.smedegaard added a subscriber: jonas.smedegaard.Nov 17 2018, 10:22

PureOS avoid code which Debian or the GNU project considers nonfree - despite others (inlcuding kernel developers) having different opinions regarding licensing and the need for sources of code/data/blobs.

*Not* recommended as a fix for this issue, but you can try install the Debian non-free package "firmware-realtek" and if that (and only PureOS code installed besides that one package) makes your hardware work then highly likely your hardware cannot work with what PureOS considers Free software.

Another attempt you can try (but less likely to be effective, since 8188eu is not mentioned there) is to install the package r8168-dkms and see if that makes a difference.

• purity added a comment.Nov 18 2018, 21:10

I tried installing the firmware-realtek package and it worked. So it would seem that
my hardware is incompatible with free software. I believe that the game changer was the firmware binary rtl8188eufw.bin and not the driver alone.

It is unfortunate but i guess i have no other choice.

Thank you for your support

jonas.smedegaard closed this task as Resolved.Nov 19 2018, 00:29
jonas.smedegaard claimed this task.

Sorry for you that your hardware cannot work with Free software.

Closing this bugreport accordingly.