Enabe WiFi-related kernel options

[snegovick]

Enable USB WiFi dongles support in mitx_defconfig

[snegovick]

Tested a little bit with rtl8188cus USB WiFi plugs, it works somewhat, but leads to hung kernel tasks like below, but bear in mind that my user space is heavily tainted now and this same module probably better be checked on fresh system

[  240.159930]       Not tainted 3.19.12-mitx-00001-g5bacdbfb-dirty #5
[  240.166296] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
[  240.174245] kworker/0:3     D 80681b80     0  1390      2 0x00100000
[  240.180782] Workqueue: events_power_efficient reg_check_chans_work [cfg80211]
[  240.188041] Stack : 824a097c 84bf1c80 00000012 00010000 824a1200 824a1200 00000001 824a1200
	  807fda40 8007a004 00000000 8080c890 8492063c 808c0000 808c0000 808c0000
	  808bf184 80075a98 8492063c 00000000 0714e231 00000000 6307097a 00000000
	  8088d200 8080c890 808c0000 00000080 808247b4 85fc3ce8 808247d8 00000001
	  85fc3d70 0000000a 846307d0 8088d200 00000001 00000001 8088d200 8080c420
	  ...
[  240.225218] Call Trace:
[  240.227728] [<80680fd4>] __schedule+0x35c/0x9c4
[  240.232332] [<80681b80>] schedule_preempt_disabled+0x10/0x1c
[  240.238094] [<806838b0>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xd4/0x1e0
[  240.243588] [<c15423d4>] reg_check_chans_work+0x38/0x360 [cfg80211]
[  240.249966] [<80046a4c>] process_one_work+0x154/0x4b0
[  240.255105] [<80047354>] worker_thread+0x17c/0x648
[  240.259985] [<8004c8c8>] kthread+0x10c/0x124
[  240.264338] [<8000a058>] ret_from_kernel_thread+0x14/0x1c
[  240.269814] 

[snegovick]

Now I can confirm that rtl8188 module does something funny with kernel on clean debian 8 too.

[ndz215]

I have successfully used the following WiFi module on MiniITX running
Linux 3.19 and Debian 8.7. The report follows.

We use RT3070-based ZyXEL USB dongle:
user@tclient:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 04b3:3107 IBM Corp. ThinkPad 800dpi Optical Travel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c312 Logitech, Inc. DeLuxe 250 Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0586:341e ZyXEL Communications Corp. NWD2105 802.11bgn Wireless Adapter [Ralink RT3070]
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0bda:4838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:2517 Standard Microsystems Corp. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The kernel needs to have 802.11 support and the Ralink modules. They are
not compiled by default (see the included config file).
user@tclient:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
ctr 3847 2
ccm 8414 2
arc4 1552 2
rt2800usb 15811 0
rt2x00usb 10281 1 rt2800usb
rt2800lib 81024 1 rt2800usb
rt2x00lib 43406 3 rt2x00usb,rt2800lib,rt2800usb
mac80211 356387 3 rt2x00lib,rt2x00usb,rt2800lib
cfg80211 204977 2 mac80211,rt2x00lib
crc_ccitt 1099 1 rt2800lib
snd_usb_audio 132879 2
snd_hwdep 6346 1 snd_usb_audio
snd_usbmidi_lib 22528 1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi 21899 1 snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_seq_device 6986 1 snd_rawmidi
mmc_spi 13510 0
crc7 825 1 mmc_spi
of_mmc_spi 1605 1 mmc_spi
mmc_core 103397 2 of_mmc_spi,mmc_spi
crc_itu_t 1099 1 mmc_spi
fuse 92758 1

The device needs firmware rt2870.bin available in the firmware-ralink package.
user@tclient:~$ dpkg -l | grep ralink
ii firmware-ralink 0.43 all Binary firmware for Ralink wireless cards

The package is in the non-free section, so add it to the sources.list file:

[/etc/apt/sources.list]
deb http://ftp.ru.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.ru.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.ru.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.ru.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free

and run apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-ralink.

Install wireless-tools:
apt-get install wireless-tools

Make sure wlan0 is not listed in the interfaces file:
[/etc/network/interfaces]
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

If it is listed there, remove the wlan0 line and reboot.

Cofigure the wifi via NetworkManager GUI (the icon in the top right corner).
I use WPA/WPA2 Personal for encription. I also specified the WiFi MAC address in
the NetworkManager GUI. Not sure if it is necessary.