Best Mini-USB WiFi Stick For Pandora?


levi1123

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Oct 12, 2009
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I have busted wifi myself on my unit, can I buy a mini USB stick? or can anyone point me to a working one that isnt really huge?
 
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http://www.pandorawi...B_WiFi_adapters


Any dongle having rtl8192cu inside would work fine with the driver which is already built and you only need to install it which is as difficult as



Code:
sudo mkdir /lib/modules/2.6.27.46.omap1/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/

sudo cp /where/the/driver/is/8192cu.ko /lib/modules/2.6.27.46.omap1/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/

sudo depmod

sudo modprobe 8192cu


Of course you'll need the driver itself, it's at Pandora file archive. These are compact, Pandora even fits in its case with the dongle plugged in.


Also, I'm building (building != writing) them for practice, some work, some don't, post your requests and test here: http://boards.openpa...er/page__st__20
 
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Hoodoo why dont you make a PND that installs this for the user?, you could even include the module/driver inside the PND so your above script would work easily.
 
Partly because I actually didn't think many people would need it, and partly because I'm fine with CLI.


When I fix my Pandora, I'll try to do a package. Or anyone else can, I won't be bitching about it because it's Realtek's driver, not mine and the cross-compiler is DJWillis'. :)
 
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you really dont need a pandora to make a PND :p but you may need someone to test it for you imsure there would be willing volenteers.
 
Hmm, I'll try, not sure about when. If I had my Pandora working I would do it while commuting to work.


//I didn't make a PND on purpose to make people run scary terminal and think about file system hierarchy and permissions, but you failed my plan :)


I also think the whole 'can I buy a dongle/where do I get the driver' part can be split into its own topic.
 
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There are several other dongles which look the same, some noname thingies and one from Realtek which I suppose have the same chip inside. Amazon recommends them as 'similar items'.


These don't have an impressive range unfortunately. Two/three concrete walls make it loose signal.


In the said topic there's another driver: http://boards.openpa...dpost__p__94875


With bigger antenna you could turn your Pandora in a wardriving ueberdevice (if the driver works, it's not tested yet).


This one is also reported to work with the 8192 driver or with Pandora original driver, I think that it's rt2870, but we need to ask Jeff for details: http://www.belkin.co...oduct_Id=492430
 
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I guess we'll eventually include rtl8192cu in firmware (regardless of what Craig chooses), it seems to be rather popular chip (reminiscent of rtl8139 network card on PCs).
 
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Oh, here's who made all of the work: if notaz et al. didn't add compat-wireless to the kernel we could compile whatever drivers we want, they just wouldn't work.
 
Am I the only one who would like to see this as a fully packaged PND with the driver bundled in? Although I don't fear the command line so much, chasing down the right pieces to put together is a bit annoying.


Have it generate one icon in the system menu, "Toggle HooDoo"


I suppose we could wait for HF6 - or would that still not include drivers for dongles?
 
Well we shouldn't have needed these drivers in the first place. I only bothered tinkering with them because I couldn't send my device for RMA.


As for system menu - modifying the original wifi script should be super trivial, ut just loads/unloads the module, you change the module name and that's it. Not sure it's necessary since you have a nice reliable hardware toggle (just pull out the dongle), but it's doable. Or it can be copied and modified, really simple.


The driver is going to be included into firmware if I understand notaz correct.


OTOH making PNDs worths learning, so I think I'll make one next week (I'm having some IRL things to do this weekend, and my server needs some love, after that I'm ready to play with that).


hf6 is needed anyway - the driver wouldn't work with hf5, would just throw a bunch of errors at you. Kernel black magick and such.


Upd. ED just said they are going to sell these Pandoras w/o internal wifi chips bundled with RTL8188SU dongles, so there's going to be even more dongles supported.
 
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