Best Kali Linux Wi-Fi Adapter with Monitor Mode 2023
This list review the best kali Linux Wi-Fi adapter Depending on the chipset.People seem to get confused when we talk about kali Wi-Fi adapter and wireless cards, they don’t know what they are, why do we need them and how to select the right one because there is so many brands. The thing is not every Wi-Fi card support Monitor mode, and packet injection, that’s why we created this Kali Linux Wi-Fi adapter list.
For network security analyses and penetration testing, many people use Kali Linux as their operating system. There are a number of things to take into consider when choosing a USB Wi-Fi adapter for Kali Linux, including compatibility, range, and speed. The top USB Wi-Fi adapters for Kali Linux are listed below:
The best Wi-Fi adapter for Kali Linux As has been said many times, there is no “Best Wi-Fi adapter” Sometimes you need to work quietly and we need a tiny Wi-Fi adapter, sometimes we work in the “concrete jungle” and we need the most powerful and most sensitive device with large antennas.Some of us live in areas where there is an abundance of 5.0GHz ac Access Points, but in some places, there are simply no Access Points on 5.0GHz. Someone can easily afford to spend 50 bucks, and someone is looking for cheap adapters in the secondary market.
Our tasks are different, our environment is different and the best USB Wi-Fi adapter for kali Linux for us will also be different devices. But there are rules that work well:
- Adapters with large external antennas are usually more sensitive and powerful (this is important)
- alfa Wi-Fi adapter are a good choice for most.
Why you need a USB Wi-Fi adapter for kali Linux?
A USB wireless adapter is a device that you connect to your computer through a USB port and it allows you to communicate with other devices over Wi-Fi so you can use it to connect to wireless networks and communicate with other computers that use Wi-Fi,now you may say that your laptop already has this and yes that’s correct most laptops and most phones already have this built-in but there’s two problems with that though
- The first problem is you can’t access built-in wireless adapters through kali if it’s installed as a virtual machine
- The second problem and the most important problem is the fact that these built-in wireless adapters are not good for hacking
so even if you install kali Linux as a main machine and then you’ll have access to your built-in wireless card but still you won’t to be able to use this wireless adapter for hacking because it doesn’t support monitor mode or packet injection.So, if you want to be able to use it to Wi-Fi audit and do all the cool stuff that we can do in kali Linux with aircrack-ng and other tools you need to get a kali Linux USB Wi-Fi adapter.
Depending on the selected chipset, there may be nuances. The Realtek chipset has problems (solved) when attacking WPS, and the Atheros chipset seems to be incapable of capturing PMKID.
Wrong: at least Alfa AWUS036NHA (chipset: Atheros AR9271) can catch PMKID (for attacks on Access Points without clients, Learn about these attacks here).
Here is a large list of monitor mode Wi-Fi adapter and wireless adapter capable of injection.
With any of these models, you can grab a handshake and perform most of the wireless attacks.In addition to the monitor mode and wireless injections, in some attacks, the Wi-Fi adapter also requires AP mode and support for virtual wireless interfaces. See the article “ How to determine which Wi-Fi adapter is suitable for Kali Linux ” for details.
If you purchased a dual-Band (2.4GHz 5.0GHz) adapter, you need to install the rtl8812au driver, to do this please follow this tutorial: how to Install rtl8812au Drivers on Kali Linux
RTL8812AU and RTL8814AU
The difference between RTL8812AU and RTL8814AU chipsets in the ability to support a different number of antennas.
In some cases, depending on the circuit design of the device manufacturer or firmware, one antenna can be used only for transmission, and the other only for reception. Also, some devices work only in one range of choice, others – in two ranges simultaneously. This also needs to be considered when purchasing devices.
Some manufacturers, for example, Alfa AWUS036ACH. Alfa AWUS1900. TRENDnet TEW-809UB. use additional chips (for example, signal amplifiers) and may have other nice features.
For those who decide to save money and buy products on sites like AliExpress on the above-mentioned chipsets. Antennas can be 2, 4 or even more, but very important for these 2.4/5.0 GHz chipsets is also MIMO, which, when using multiple antennas, increases the chance of capturing a handshake and is also crucial for achieving maximum transmission speeds data under normal use.
But, unfortunately, Chinese manufacturers often multiplex antennas instead of MIMO or simply place non-connected antennas.
So let’s see what’s the best Wi-Fi adapter for kali Linux in our monitor mode Wi-Fi adapter list and lets start with dual Band.
Dual Band (2.4GHz 5.0GHz) Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac USB Adapters
1-Alfa AWUS1900
Alfa AWUS1900
- excellent manufacturer
- No locked functions
- interchangeable antennas
- Modern RTL8814AU chip
Feedback:The main advantage is the Taiwanese manufacturer Alfa and its usual advantages: nothing is blocked, strong assembly, orientation to the connection, and not design, like that of a fellow on the chip from Asus or D-Link. The RTL8814AU chip is a successful design, with which additional antennas are only a plus. That is, at the hardware level, everything is fine, but at the driver level – under Windows and MacOS, the native one is available, that is, it is not Alfa that provides it, but Realtek itself. And this driver is terrible.
The driver loses the signal, can “forget” about the 5-gigarz channels, disconnects, does not provide stable quality, forgets to switch communication modes, “shits” into the RAM, with loads like torrents it can simply be cut off. If this happens, try resetting the driver in the device manager,
Under MacOS, the driver is much better. And under Linux, several are being developed at once, and nowhere are there any problems with Windows. However, on all OSs, AWUS1900 can decide that it is connected to USB2.0, even if the wire is in USB3.0. According to the site, the adapter should automatically switch modes depending on which port is inserted, and it works every other time. Perhaps in the following revisions this will be fixed. Alfa AWUS1900 is the best monitor mode Wi-Fi adapter in our list
2- Alfa AWUS036ACH
Alfa AWUS036ACH
- Excellent manufacturer
- No locked functions
- interchangeable antennas
- RTL8812AU chip
- Stable pings
- Frequency Band:
- 2.4 GHz 5 GHz
Alfa AWUS036ACH (chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU)
Advantages: Well, actually the most important plus is (. ) Injection (. ), but it supports it, and in Windows too. Power – you can pile as much as 2.5 watts. This adapter is also supported in CommView Wi-Fi. Stable pings. You can tweak the simultaneous use of multiple access points.
Disadvantages: In terms of functionality, the RTL8812AU chipset does not support the 802.11ac standard a modern high-speed PIMO 4×4 mode, it is clearly inferior in sensitivity to the flagship model from Alfa Network AWUS1900, but still it’s one of the best Wi-Fi hacking adapter.
3- Alfa AWUS036AC (chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get AWUS036AC from amazon
Advantages: Speed, signal stability, two ranges, 2 external antennas, docking station, USB 3.0.Disadvantages: No significant deficiencies.comment: The five concrete walls for this whistle are not a hindrance. No problem got on Windows 7 and 8.1. Tested on 4 different devices.
From the merits imply disadvantages – size. When installed in USB on a straight line, bypassing the docking station takes up a lot of space: you will not plug anything into the next port. However, significant problems with portable use due to bulkiness was not observed.
4-TRENDnet TEW 809U
TRENDnet TEW 809U
- Wi-Fi standard: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
- Max. speed: 1300 Mbit/s
- USB 3.0 connection
- interchangeable antennas
- Chipset: Realtek RTL8814AU
- Frequency Band:
- 2.4 GHz 5 GHz
Trendnet ac1200 dual Band wireless USB adapter kali linux
The total bandwidth of the TrendNet TEW-809UB is 1900 Mbps (1300 Mbps in the 5 GHz Band and 600 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz Band).The presence of four antennas allows you to implement beam forming technology for a more confident connection. The TEW-809UB comes with a USB 3.0 cable length.
5- Panda Wireless PAU09 N600 (chipset: Ralink RT5572) Get PAU09 N600 from amazon
Panda wireless pau09 n600 is capable of switching to monitor mode and making wireless injections,The card supports several Linux distributions, as well as Windows. The wireless card has two 5dBi antennas to enhance the signal. Specifications
- Protocols: 802.11n
- Speed: 300Mpbs
- Chipset Ralink RT5572
- Frequencies: two 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands
- Two detachable 5dBi antennas
6- TP-Link TL WN722N
TP-Link TL-WN722N
- Chip: Atheros 9271
- Standards: 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n
- Frequency range: 2400-2483.5 MHz
- Transmitter power: 20 dBm
- Antenna : removable omnidirectional antenna (RP- SMA)
TP-Link TL-WN722N
TP-liNK – model TL-WN722N v.1.0. The device has been produced for several years and in terms of technical characteristics, by current standards, it does not represent anything outstanding – the maximum wireless connection speed is only 150 Mbps. A feature of the model is the presence of an external removable antenna with a gain of 4 dBi, which, according to the manufacturer, can significantly increase the signal power.
7- TP-Link Archer T9UH
TP-LINK Archer T9UH
- Frequency bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz;
- Four high gain antennas;
- Beamforming technology;
- WPS button
- Chip:RTL8814AU
TP-link Archer T9UH AC1900
The Archer T9UH is capable of operating in one of two bands: the 5 GHz channel is suitable for online games and HD video streaming, and the 2.4 GHz channel is suitable for surfing the Internet and video conferencing. The adapter provides data transfer rates up to 600 Mbps over 2.4 GHz and up to 1,300 Mbps over 5 GHz.
8- TP-LINK Archer T4UH (rev V2, chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU)Get Archer T4UH from amazon9- TP-LINK Archer T4U (rev V3, chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get Archer T4U from amazon
10- D-Link DWA-192 (chipset: Realtek RTL8814AU) Get DWA 192 from amazon
- The design is rather good than bad
- Excellent speed – squeezes everything my provider can give
- Never in half a year of use did you have to reboot – plugged in and forgot!
Comment: The home nonprofessional test showed that there are practically no noticeable differences in the actual data transfer rate between the mini-PCI-E adapter with a speed of 867 megabits and the DWA-192 with its 1300 megabytes. I admit, however, that the difference with other external adapters, and even more so the standard 802.11n, will be much more noticeable.
11- D-Link DWA-182 (rev C, chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get DWA-182 from amazon
Advantages:– No out-of-order diode.– Relatively compact– Supports USB 3.0 and 5 GHz (in my rev. C1A)– Overheating has not yet hung upDisadvantages:– None of the drivers from D-link stably does not work– There is no USB extension cable in the set (it would not hurt)
12- Edimax AC600 USB (chipset: Realtek RTL8811AU) Get AC600 USB from amazon
13- Netis WF2190 (chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get Netis WF2190 from amazon
Advantages:– AC speed– Dual antenna signal– USB 3– USB extension– removable antennasDisadvantages:Over 2 weeks of use, I did not find any problems.comment: Chip Realtek RTL8812AU.
14- Tenda U12 (chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get Tenda U12 from amazon
Advantages:Performs all functions perfectly.Disadvantages:On Win10 without drivers it did not start, I had to install it.comment:The speed does not sink, it looks decent, Wi-Fi at 5GHz catches instantly.
15- ZyXEL NWD6605 (chipset: Realtek RTL8812AU) Get NWD6605 from amazon
Single-Band 2.4GHz Kali Linux Wi-Fi adapters
16- Alfa AWUS036NHA
Alfa AWUS036NHA
AWUS036NHA – is capable of supporting MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) – a method of spatial coding of a signal, allowing to increase the channel bandwidth in which data transmission and data reception are performed by systems from several antennas.
Alfa AWUS036NHA (chipset: Atheros AR9271)
One of the most knowen monitor mode Wi-Fi adapter is Alfa AWUS036NHA it’s a Wi-Fi USB adapter that supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/N. Able to create networks with transmission speeds up to 150 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz Band, which is also compatible with IEEE 802.11 b/g for connecting wireless devices at speeds up to 54 Mbps.
ALFA AWUS036NHA is built on the atheros ar9271 chipset, the adapter does an excellent job with the functions of wardriving, testing for penetration of wireless networks and solving non-trivial tasks.The ALFA 036NHA adapter works great with the Kali Linux operating system, ar9271chipset is one of the best chipset you can ever find.
17- TP-LINK TL-WN823N (rev v1, chipset: Realtek RTL8192CU) Get TL WN823N from amazon
Cheap wireless adapter for kali Linux TP-Link TL WN823N is a wireless Wi-Fi adapter that is designed to connect your computer to a Wi-Fi network for future use of the Internet. This adapter has a compact size and is connected to the computer via a USB connector with a very cheap price.
18- TP-LINK TL-WN822N (rev v3, chipset: Realtek RTL8192CU) Get TL WN822N from amazon
tp-link tl wn822n Advantages:– a long USB adapter, it is convenient to bring the adapter to a better place– it connected to Windows 10 with the latest update automatically, even the driver did not have to be installed, although the third version of the adapter was caught– a reasonable pricetp-link tl wn822n Disadvantages:haven’t noticed yet
19- TP-LINK TL-WN821N (rev v4, chipset: Realtek RTL8192CU) Get TL WN821N from amazon
20- Asus USB N13 (rev B1, chipset: Realtek RTL8192CU) Get Asus USB N13 from amazon
Asus USB N13 advantages:Works with those characteristics as stated.N13 Disadvantages: Not foundComment: At home, the internet rate is 100mbps, measured at speedtest showed 92/94mbps, the losses are minimal. I use it in conjunction with Asus RT-N12E, tkip-aes is set up in the settings.21- Panda PAU06 USB (chipset: Ralink RT5372) Get Panda PAU06 from amazon
22- Panda PAU05 USB (chipset: Ralink RT3070) Get Panda PAU05 from amazon
23- Netis WF2123 (chipset: Realtek RTL8192CU) Get Netis WF2123 from Amazon
So this was a list of best compatible USB wireless adapter for kali linux but we still have more for internal Wi-Fi adapter.
Internal Kali Linux Wi-Fi For laptop
Some laptops have wireless adapters pre-installed that can be listed as monitor mode Wi-Fi adapter. For example, Intel chips can do this. over, they also support the Access Point mode and virtual interfaces. Apparently, it’s a matter of good support for Intel wireless drivers for Linux. Therefore, they are suitable for daily use in Linux, as well as for wireless attacks.
I had laptops with the following adapter models
- Intel Wireless-AC 9560 [Jefferson Peak] (rev 10) – has 2 × 2 antennas, supports MU-MIMO and supports AC
- Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
They work very well for transferring data or grabbing handshakes. I think that all representatives of the Wireless-AC and Intel Centrino Advanced-N lines support monitor mode and wireless injections. Therefore, Intel internal adapters help me when I cannot use Alfa external adapters. But, of course, you need to make a correction for the absence of external antennas.
Popular chips and their featuresIt may seem that choosing a USB adapter for auditing wireless networks is simple. In theory, enough to buy any device with a suitable chip, and you can go to conquer the access point. In practice, there are plenty of unobvious things and important details.
Комментарии и мнения владельцев
Im looking for Wi-Fi adapter supports packet injection, what’s the most powerful dual Band Wi-Fi adapters for packet injection and monitor mode ?
All of these adapters in the list support monitor mode and packet injection even the 13 USB Wi-Fi adapter works perfectly fine
running ‘netsh wlan show wirelesscapabilities’ on my laptop with intel 9560 chipset shows that it does not support promiscuous mode.
Alfa AWUS036ACH has been my favorite adapter for years, with it’s chipset RTL8812AU it has been one of the best Wi-Fi adapter for kali ever
Have absolutely never gotten our one to work and it was 100 bucks too. Don’t know how all these sites still recommend it.
I am planning to buy ALFA AC1900 but after reading Комментарии и мнения владельцев about driver failure i got confused. Similarly ALFA AC1200 is not recognising ac or 5ghz channels for packet injection. I am extremely confused what to do now
Alfa AC1900 Works fine you just need to install the right drivers to support monitor mode and packet injection
Great article, Thanks for the Detailed Analysis of the USB Wi-Fi adapter. Would you please tell me that, do I need a Wi-Fi adapter for Kali Linux if I have a laptop?
But they already explained that in the article didn’t they? If you’re using a virtual machine of Kali, you’ve got some issues accessing the Wi-Fi hardware. I’ve done it before( I honestly don’t know what they mean) then they said Even with a base metal install some chipsets built into laptops don’t do monitor mode and even more don’t do injection… (Some lol) But that might’ve been a different article I was reading… And my base metal installed (HP- beats by dre edition ) laptop has no problem doing those… But I’ve never been able to successfully run wifite and I’m pretty sure the pmkid thingy could’ve been to blame so. it seemed to have some problems I ultimately was able to capture handshakes with it so you might wanna do some more research and don’t take out words for it… Infosec prolly got some good info on the issue. idk hope that helped, if you really wanna
I bought the Trendnet AC1900 TEW 809UB (for 30 bucks; a steal for the extra power), not realizing it didn’t have good Linux driver support but I had got it working with help from 3rd party Github drivers on an older Kali version (Kali 5.12 to 5.14, I think)… Since I updated to 5.15 It doesn’t want to quite run properly It’s detected as NIC with lsusb but doesn’t come up with iwconfig or ifconfig at all…. so it’s buggy but the range was suuuper impressive when it was working lol…. any advice is much welcome btw.
I have bought tenda 331m which has rtl8818gu chipset. It gets detected by lsusb but not in ifconfig.plz suggest.
Thanks for the very nice article. I have a question, are all the Wi-Fi adapters listed here capable of monitor mode and packet injection on KaliLinux?
But tp-kink tl-wn823n (chipset RTL8192eu) supports monitor mode and not packet injection. Why is that?
I think I get the gist of things, that is that all of the adapters on the list support monitor and injection mode but I’m ever so slightly confused by the fact that all the way up until the Archer T9UH, there are specific Комментарии и мнения владельцев relating to the adapters’ use for hacking purposes, ie.,as it relates to handshakes, monitoring, injection etc but then for some reason, the comment associated with the Archer T9UH looks like it came out of a PCWorld magazine or something, certainly nothing related to hacking but rather to its functional application for use in connecting to the internet and nothing more. While I’m a noob where a lot of this is concerned (admittedly I purchased the Archer T9UH oblivious to the fact that it had monitor and injection mode support and to make matters worse depending on how you look at it, I have been using a Linux aircrack-ng driver from Chaotic-AUR with it ever since purchase, knowing that a world of presently hidden capabilities existed but never taking the time to learn a little bit more about it all). Fast forward to now and I’m attempting to change all that but I’m starting from scratch with nothing more than the knowledge that my Wi-Fi adapter supports this as of yet still mysterious functionally. I know there’s not really a question in there, more like I’m curious why starting with the adapter that I purchased on a wimb did the Комментарии и мнения владельцев change tone from directly relating to their use in and for the dark arts to the equivalent of a turkey and extra mayo sandwich, if you catch my meaning (I can have a strange way with words and I can’t use the excuse that English isn’t my first language bc it is. Really it’s my only language, I have barely passable conversational skills on a superficial level in German and Portuguese and a little bit Spanish Italian but only because of the Portuguese knowledge but it’s not even close to fluency so yeah I’m just a weird bird but I have a feeling I could find my flock or at the very least some other weird birds even if everyone flies at their own speed and altitude amongst the type of person that runs Kali as a daily driver) I feel like there’s some part of me that’s known all along that I would find my way into this world but hesitating due to the sheer size and scope of the required reading, so to speak. Regardless, I’ve been slowly inching my way there, starting with embracing Linux and command line 3-4 years ago which lead to virtual machines and rooting Android devices, playing around with SBCs (O-droid N2 4gb) and just general ripping apart whatever tech i can get my hands on (that I’m comfortable with possibly borking) and seeing if I can mod it in some way or at least gain some new understanding about how it’s components and underlying technical concepts, etc. work. Or at the VERY least, be able to put it back together again and have it work. Considering it’s usually done with something featuring at least 1 failure point, usually at a hardware level, this isn’t necessarily a walk in the park. I’ve become fairly productive with a soldering gun/pencil, though. Even if it doesn’t end up leading me to the promised land, it’s still damn satisfying when you slap it all back together and have a working X,Y or Z. Earlier when I said I have a funny way with words I should have just called a spade a spade and admitted that I’m extremely long-winded. If you actually read all of the above and have any words to share with a Lost Boy, I’m all PS – I’m not currently daily driving Kali, at least not on bare metal but I have it in a VM. My daily driver is arch-based and I’ve got the blackarch repo included with PacMan. Is it really that advantageous to run Kali Linux over something like my setup which is specifically a Black Arch spin of Garuda Linux, or rather do I put myself at a disadvantage by using this setup over simply running Kali? I’m somewhat attached to Garuda Linux since it’s the first distro that I liked enough to call a home after distro hopping every few months from the point that I first installed Linux as my OS until finding Garuda. That was only a few months after it’s inception, well before it was even in the top 100 (or 300 for that matter) on Distrowatch and I haven’t looked in at least the last few months but last I checked it was at number 7 on DW. That said, I’ve also come to learn that any distro can be fine-tuned to cater to one’s preferences. Even if it doesn’t come with your desktop environment of choice. Out of the box where there’s a will, there’s generally a way with Linux and I find that generally speaking, in simplified terms that’s an adequate summary of the hacking mindset on the whole
I spent nearly an hour replying to you and your eagle eye and it kept getting wiped before I sent it, I too am interested in the perhaps sanitised version of the description of the T9UH
No Wi-Fi Adapter Found error in Ubuntu [Fixed]
Regarding operating systems, Ubuntu Linux is the one to take the top spot. This is likely due to the care canonical the company behind develops and maintains Ubuntu has put in making it user-friendly and robust in terms of features that appeal to broader audiences.
However, issues with the wireless adapter are a frequent problem in many operating systems, and the same in Ubuntu is no exception. When we encounter this error, it simply means that Ubuntu cannot detect the Wi-Fi adapter that is physically connected. This is the error that prevents users from getting access to the internet. Given the increasing reliance on the internet for almost anything, resolving this issue as early as possible is crucial.
Indeed this is a critical problem as it prevents you from connecting to the internet wirelessly on your device, but at the same time, fixing it is rather easy and quick.
This guide will provide a comprehensive overview of the “No Wi-Fi Adapter Found” error in the Ubuntu system, its potential causes, and effective troubleshooting steps. By the end of this guide, we hope you’ll be able to navigate and resolve this issue confidently, ensuring your Ubuntu experience remains as seamless and efficient as possible.
What is a Wi-Fi adapter?
Wi-Fi adapters provide your computer with a wireless connection facility hence letting you connect to nearby Wi-Fi networks. Modern laptops, office computers, and high-end personal desktops are equipped with inbuilt Wi-Fi adapters. There is a high chance that your device is running a Wi-Fi adapter from some of the major wireless adapters brands like Intel, Broadcom, and Realtek.
Any prerequisites?
You will need a working internet connection to install the proprietary drivers for the network adapter. You can use your iPhone or Android as a wired connection using USB tethering or an ethernet cable to access the internet. If you are using your phone, don’t worry; it will just cost a few megabytes of data.
How to fix the “No Wi-Fi Adapter Found” error?
First, we must check whether your PC can recognize the Wi-Fi Adapter. To perform this diagnosis, follow the steps below:
Identifying the wireless adapter
Open the terminal by pressing CTRLALTT
Enter the following command:
The hardware lister ( lshw ) can provide a detailed description of your network device using the above command. Note down the product name.
If the details of the wireless adapter are not listed as shown in the image above, follow the steps below.
Identifying an internal wireless adapter
If you are using a laptop, there is a high probability that it is equipped with an internal(PCI) wireless adapter. To list all the PCI devices, enter the following command in the terminal:
Look for the network controller in the list of PCI devices, it should look like this:
04:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
Identifying a USB wireless adapter
If you are using an external wireless adapter via USB, enter the following code:
Your network adapter might show up like this:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188EUS 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
Once you have identified the build/model of the wireless adapter, you can proceed to the next steps.
Installing the wireless adapter drivers
Before proceeding to install the driver, update the apt repositories using:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
Below are the steps to install the wireless adapter drivers from different manufacturers.
Realtek Driver
Download the latest Realtek rtlwifi codes repository from this Github link
Extract the downloaded ZIP file and go to the newly created folder called rtw88-master
Open the terminal in the current directory and enter the following commands one by one:
Reboot your device. If the Wi-Fi adapter is still not detected, run the following command (Please replace with the appropriate module name):
sudo modprobe.r sudo modprobe
Broadcom Driver
For Broadcom devices, you just need to enter the following code and then reboot your device:
sudo apt-get install.-reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source
Intel Driver
Download the suitable Intel wireless adapter firmware from this official link
Extract the contents of the downloaded file and open the terminal in the extracted folder
Enter the following code:
sudo cp ucode /lib/firmware
This code will copy the files to the firmware directory hence installing the required Intel drivers.
If the error is still not fixed
There can be other possibilities, such as:
- Your Wi-Fi adapter is malfunctioning
- Your Wi-Fi adapter is not supported by the current version of the Linux kernel
- Your device is experiencing hardware problems
In this case, you can always explore the inexpensive option of using an external USB Wi-Fi adapter. Most of the newer models are compatible with Linux and work just as well as the internal ones.
Conclusion
Configuring hardware devices on Linux-based systems is a daunting task when needed to be done manually. The plethora of network interface components in the market has also made the installation more complex, but we have tried to make this guide inclusive for almost all possible modules. Nevertheless, we hope this guide can walk you through the solution easily.
References
This guide was compiled by referring to the following:
Use sysfs to restart failed PCI devices (Wi-Fi cards, sound cards, etc.)
This article describes one method of restarting PCI devices. It demonstrates restarting a wireless device. But the concept should work on any device whose device driver has adequate hotplug support. [1]
Computers typically consist of several interconnected devices. Some devices can be physically disconnected and reconnected with ease (for example, most USB devices). Others might require a specific interaction with the operating system or specific software. And others will require a full reboot.
Built-in laptop wireless cards are PCI devices that could fail at runtime but might not be easy to physically disconnect and reconnect without a full reboot. In many cases these devices can be restarted through Linux’s sysfs interface without having to do a full reboot of the computer.
This article will specifically demo how to restart an Atheros wireless card which has locked up.
How to restart PCI devices
Depending on your particular desktop environment and hardware, it may be possible to switch the PCI card off and back on using a GUI or hardware switch or button. But if none of those options exist or work, the following CLI method of restarting the PCI card might prove useful.
To restart a wireless card you will need its PCI domain, bus, device and function address. Run the lspci command, as shown below, and search its output to find your wireless card’s PCI address.
lspci 3d:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)
In the above example, the PCI address of the Atheros card is 3d:00.0. If the address shown does not include a domain part (that is, the number at the start of the line contains only one colon character), then the computer has only one PCI domain and it is 0000.
The following commands, with the capital letters substituted with the device’s PCI address, can be used to restart a PCI device on a running system. [2]
# Echo 1 /sys/bus/pci/devices/DDDD\:BB\:DD.F/remove # sleep 1 # Echo 1 /sys/bus/pci/rescan
In the above example, the placeholders DDDD, BB, DD, and F are for the PCI device domain, bus, device, and function respectively.
Substituting the values from the example output of the lspci command shown above gives the command that would need to be run to restart the Atheros wireless card on this example system.
sudo /bin/sh.c Echo ‘1’ /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:3d\:00.0/remove sleep 1 sudo /bin/sh.c Echo ‘1’ /sys/bus/pci/rescan
If required, the above commands could be automated by putting them in a script.
nano restart-wireless-card.sh #!/bin/bash Echo 1 /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:3d\:00.0/remove sleep 1 Echo 1 /sys/bus/pci/rescan
Enable executable permissions with, for example, chmod x restart-wireless-card.sh and run sudo./restart-wireless-card.sh whenever you need to restart your PCI device.
Final notes
Not all PCI devices can be restarted using this method. But the real-life example demonstrated above does work to get the Wi-Fi card running again without requiring a full reboot of the PC.
Using E-Key M.2 Wi-Fi Adapters with Orange Pi 5
Orange Pi has not released the Wi-Fi module for the Orange Pi 5 yet which has left some people in a difficult position. While working on this problem I discovered an adapter that claimed to be able to let me use normal E-keyed Wi-Fi adapters (commonly found in laptops and tablets) with the Orange Pi 5 using an adapter.
I received and tested the adapter and I am pleased to report it works perfectly! There are some caveats though such as you need a driver for your Wi-Fi card within your OS (and often firmware as well).
In this guide I’ll show you how to get this working with the Orange Pi 5 using Linux. Let’s get started!
Hardware Used
Convert a M.2 Key-E or Key AE module (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Dual Band Wireless Module, etc.) to be used with M Key M.2 Socket. Supports Bluetooth and Dual Band Wireless Modules.
The Orange Pi official mouse uses 2.4GHz wireless to give you a wireless mouse experience with the Orange Pi
The Orange Pi monitor is meant to be a portable monitor you can take anywhere. It has a resolution of 1080P and features a hinge in the back that folds out to support the monitor.
Custom Wi-Fi Module (Added 1/15/2023)
The Orange Pi 5 official wireless module is designed to fit into a M-keyed M.2 slot (the only one the Orange Pi 5 has). This Wi-Fi adapter will work with both Linux and Android.
Problem Overview
The Orange Pi 5 only has a single M.2 slot and is it M-keyed. This is meant for storage devices typically. Because of this Orange Pi is releasing a “custom PCB” wireless adapter for the Orange Pi 5 to allow you to choose between using the M.2 slot for storage or Wi-Fi.
Normal Wi-Fi adapters will not fit into the Orange Pi 5’s M.2 slot basically without using an adapter. It looks like this:
Installing linux-firmware
When I first got the adapter I noticed that I could see all of the adapters but it was failing to load the firmware. That is because the Orange Pi 5 does not come with the linux-firmware package installed.
sudo apt install linux-firmware.y
Tested Wi-Fi Adapters
After installing the linux-firmware package the following adapters worked for me:
Before installing the Linux firmware package I would get errors in dmesg saying that the firmware was missing. After installing the linux-firmware package all of my Intel Wi-Fi adapters became plug and play.
Best Adapter Options
Until I hear more from some of you in the Комментарии и мнения владельцев that try this I highly recommend using Intel adapters for this. They’re easy to find and almost every one I had in old laptops was an Intel adapter.
There’s an awesome list of Linux supported adapters here from Intel. This list is specifically for the Linux iwlwifi driver and tells you which version of Linux support was added for the Wi-Fi adapter.
The kernel at time of writing was:
orangepi@orangepi5:~ uname.aLinux orangepi5 5.10.110-rockchip-rk3588 #1.0.6 SMP Fri Dec 16 15:41:15 CST 2022 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
This means that anything on the above list that is supported in kernel version 5.10 or earlier should be supported!
Diagnosing Wi-Fi Adapter
First see what PCI devices you can see with:
Once you put the Wi-Fi card into the adapter and start up the Orange Pi you should view the Wi-Fi related debug output with:
This will show you all the hardware related messages related to Wi-Fi. It often will tell you critical information such as a firmware file wasn’t loaded, etc.
You will need this information to diagnose the device if it is not working properly.
Here’s an example for my non-working Broadcom adapter:
orangepi@orangepi5:~ sudo lspci [sudo] password for orangepi: 0004:40:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd Device 3588 (rev 01) 0004:41:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03) orangepi@orangepi5:~ sudo dmesg | grep.i Wi-Fi drivers/net/wireless/rockchip_wlan/rkwifi/bcmdhd compiled on Dec 7 2022 at 10:23:12 [ 10.455031] [WLAN_RFKILL]: rockchip_wifi_get_oob_irq: Enter [ 10.455035] [WLAN_RFKILL]: rockchip_wifi_get_oob_irq: rfkill-wlan driver has not Successful initialized [ 10.455047] [dhd] dhd_wifi_platform_load: Enter [ 10.455529] [dhd] dhd_wifi_platform_load_pcie: pcie_register_driver failed [ 10.455533] [dhd] unregister Wi-Fi platform drivers [ 10.455537] [dhd] wifi_platform_bus_enumerate device present 0
Here we can see that for this Broadcom adapter it still couldn’t register the driver. It probably needs a driver that isn’t as easily available as getting it from the linux-firmware package. Sometimes the messages are a lot more helpful than this but it’s definitely the place to start if your adapter isn’t working.
Alternative USB Option
Another option is to use a USB Wi-Fi adapter. This is a great option if you want to use your M.2 slot for something else (such as NVMe storage). I’ve tested the ODROID 5BK USB wireless adapter on the Orange Pi 5:
The ODROID 5BK USB Wi-Fi module works plug-and-play with the Orange Pi 5 on Linux
If you know of more adapters that are working plug-and-play let me know in the Комментарии и мнения владельцев and I can add them to the list
Conclusion
I highly recommend the Intel adapters since I can guarantee they will work. Even the adapters that failed to load a driver or proper firmware were all recognized in lspci.
It’s not pretty but you can snap off the edge of the board if you don’t want it to hang over the edge as much. There are perforations in the board meant to snap for shorter modules. It will still hang over a little though and won’t be a perfect fit.
This is a great adapter and great working solution to use E-key Wi-Fi adapters in the Orange Pi’s M-key slot. I highly recommend it! Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before the official solution is released from Orange Pi.
Other Resources
Check out my Orange Pi 5 review here for more important information about the Orange Pi 5
Don’t miss my Orange Pi SSD boot guide to learn how to set up the NVMe drive as the root partition
11 thoughts on “Using E-Key M.2 Wi-Fi Adapters with Orange Pi 5”
Where/how would one install firmware for the Wi-Fi nvme module that is specifc for the orangepi with the chip model AP6275P?
Hey Boop Snoot, Great question. So if you are using the official operating systems it’s actually in: sudo orangepi-config Then go to System Hardware Wi-Fi-ap6275p. There will be an option to enable the module in there. Hopefully that helps!
Fantastic work James as I had seen these type of adaptors previously listed on the web and your review but having actual confirmation it will work and the installation guide is greatly appreciated! Is it super convinient not really because the 2280 size sticks out like a sore thumb but for the price it will do a job until Orange Pi release a proper PCB expansion board like we see for the Pi 4 version and having variety of suitable e keyed cards is great as many can be found for cheap online. On top of the recent ARMBIAN releases it looks like the Orange Pi 5 will be a great budget SBC (with its limited faults) but overall its a very capable device so big thank you to people such as yourself who dedicate free time testing these boards out and helping them reach their capabilities. Keep up the outstanding work!
Hey Razor Burn, Thank you so much! I might have been live editing it while you were reading it so I don’t know if you saw this part or not in the version that you read but I actually added a bit at the end that it’s definitely not pretty! You can snap it along the perforations though to make it a lot shorter than it is in my pictures. I left mine intact because I am legitimately impressed by the adapter and want to use it in other places/settings. If you knew for sure that you were only going to use that small size Wi-Fi adapter with it you could absolutely break the perforations and it would still be hanging over by a little bit but dramatically less. It would basically end where the Wi-Fi adapter does if you broke the perforations so you can kind of eyeball how much it would be hanging over still if you did break them. It lived up to being plug-and-play. Even the Wi-Fi adapters I have like the Broadcom one that it doesn’t have a Linux driver for I can still completely see the device in lspci (and if I had a proper driver it would work). Some of these drivers may be inside the Linux kernel and may just need to be enabled potentially. Others may have dkms packages available to build them. This gives people some options at least. I really thought this might have been a long shot because it seemed too easy but after I read all the specifications and did the research I could tell that theoretically this should work no problem. I didn’t dare to recommend anyone buy one though until I had confirmed it. I look forward to seeing what other types of adapters people try that work with them. It won’t just be Intel ones I’m sure but those were the most easily available ones that I had. Take care!
Yeah I saw the part about snapping the extra bit off after I sent the post and like you I might just keep it as is for other applications but its a pleasant addition for those looking to use M.2 for Wi-Fi/bt with actual cards ready to use! I’m secretly holding out hope that you discover the PCIe short comings if possible as well as workout the mess that is the USB labelling and it not working well via that USB C port but overall its coming along nicely and as more people start getting their hands on it we should see improvements or maybe I’m just being optimistic as they didn’t help themselves with the poor decisions which is why I keenly await your upcoming Radxa Rock 5B review as that seems to be what everybody was hoping to see from the RK3588 SOC and although not perfect its getting solid reviews but you’re sure to put it through its paces… Take care and keep them honest!
Hey Razor Burn, Absolutely, I’ll definitely continue to investigate those issues for sure as well as keep them honest on the Radxa 5B!
User Miramax on the OrangePi Discord has shared a translated portion from the latest User Guide in Mandarin V0.6 which demonstrates the steps required to get Wi-Fibt working on Android 12 as well as a list of dongles that should work for Wi-Fi as bluetooth needs to be adapted. Page 275-278: RTL8821CU 2.4G/5G BT 4.2 0bda: c820 – only Wi-Fi, bluetooth needs to be adapted… That appears to be based off the Odroid one and shows a green labelled dongle commonly found on Amazon “Chiciris 5 BT AC600 Driver Free” RTL8723BU 2.4G Wi-Fi BT 4.0 0bda: b720.only Wi-Fi, bluetooth needs to be adapted… That appears to be the blue 4.0 dongle we see as part of the bundles from Xunlong on Aliexpress RTL8811CU 2.4G/5G Wi-Fi 0bda: c811 – only has Wi-Fi function, already supported. The picture shows a dongle branded “GRiS” and has a detachable antenna “Known problem: Currently, in order to be compatible with the AP6275P PCIe network card, the Android system of the TF card needs to be connected to the USB. Insert the wireless network card into the development board, and then start the Android system to recognize the USB wireless network card normally. NVMe and SATA Android systems do not have this problem and support hot swapping.” Now not sure why they mention the AP6275P PCIe network card as so far this doesn’t exist and they stupidly removed the onboard module but the manual does go into how to set things up and if successful search for wireless networks. Supposedly at the end of the manual it shows how to compile Android 12 source code but again valuable information like this is missing from the English version dated 08 December 2022 and many people are still searching for different dongles to see if they actually work but now we know of 3 that support Wi-Fi but no bluetooth on Android?! The Mandarin Manual can be found here as its originally behind Baidu.
Hey Razor Burn, I’ve tried unsuccessfully to flash Android a few times. It’s so annoying that Android is never distributed as a file that can just be written to a disk with something like dd or Etcher. I have to use a virtual machine and USB passthrough to try and use their proprietary Windows flashing tools (which are garbage). I think the problem I had is that the application says it’s done a long time before it’s actually finished writing to the SD card. My Android flash finished 20 minutes ago but the SD card activity indicator is still blinking. I’m going to let this one sit for a long time until it’s not blinking and then eject and hope that it actually wrote the image through my USB passthrough. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here though: shame on Android for requiring proprietary flashing tools to do something as simple as write an image to a SD card! I suppose worst case scenario I can use my wife’s computer to write this Android image if my USB passthrough is somehow breaking it. As soon as I can get a successful Android flash I will definitely take a look at this. I’m definitely not sure why they’re including the ap6xxx in the source code like that. It’s probably just the default from whatever they forked the Orange Pi 5 source from. Once I can get in though I won’t be asking Orange Pi how to add wireless drivers to Android though any more than I asked them how to add them to Linux. We have the source code so I’ll probably actually be looking at Google developer references on how to properly add an Android Wi-Fi driver to the source and rebuild it. I’m just not as familiar / experienced with Android as Linux but this is the process I will use once I can get it going. I can state for a fact that from working on the Orange Pi i96 Linux kernel code and how many problems / mistakes in their kernel both I and many members of the community personally fixed my confidence in their code is limited. I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying this because one of the big bugs I fixed in Orange Pi’s source was one of their USB ports was locked to “Full Speed” mode (11Mbps) instead of “High Speed” mode (480Mbps). This was broken like this for years and people had even submitted the fix to the Orange Pi i96 GitHub years ago (it’s still there). Even yesterday someone asked Orange Pi on GitHub to merge my changes into the official Orange Pi repository. I’m only saying this because I don’t want it to look like I’m just sniping at them or taking easy shots as a blogger who has no clue what it’s like to really develop for these boards or write/fix the code. No. I have personally published real public code as a developer on my GitHub fixing dozens of their bugs and can tell you for a fact that their code is not impressive and neither is their maintenance of it. I think we can absolutely get this done though and fix it for Android as well. I’ll definitely update when I have some Android news! EDIT: The problem with my imaging for Android turned out to be the SD card. Apparently the Rockchip tool does not like SanDisk Edge or Edge-V cards (the one that came with my Pi 400). I used a Samsung EVO Plus card and it worked the first time. At least now I can start investigating the Wi-Fi on Android!
My results for Android so far: Both of my Intel adapters won’t even light up. The blue lights on the adapter don’t come on so those ones aren’t recognized. The Broadcom one however that doesn’t work in Linux is showing: james@pop-OS:~ adb shell lspci.k 41:00.0 Class 0280: 8086:24f3 40:00.0 Class 0604: 1d87:3588 pcieport james@pop-OS:~ adb shell lsmod Module Size Used by bcmdhd 1613824 0 dhd_static_buf 16384 1 bcmdhd r8168 528384 0 Here I’m connecting to my Orange Pi 5’s Android using adb to run Linux/Unix commands. You can see that when I do lspci there is no driver for Wi-Fi card (41:00.0). Interestingly we do see the Broadcom modules loaded which is probably why the adapter lights up with the Broadcom (even though I can’t use it as my Wi-Fi adapter within Android still and it’s not showing a driver attached in lspci). I bet you anything if I had a E-key module that used a chip that was one of the 3 you listed that it would work since the wireless drivers are present (in some form, it sounds like Bluetooth isn’t working still). The Intel ones don’t even light up and when I searched for anyone using an Intel Wi-Fi adapter with Android I couldn’t find any examples so this might just not be a thing for Intel. The Broadcom one is at least recognized but it doesn’t seem to have the right driver / firmware for the module I have here. Since the lights will come on for the Broadcom though this is possible. It looks like the driver issues are going to be tougher to deal with in Android than in Linux. It might be as simple as changing some of the references in those files you pointed out to something more compatible with what I have for it to be usable as the Android Wi-Fi adapter. It’s harder to find this information than I was hoping though since most Android developer documentation is software and the documentation for hardware developers is harder to find. The Android source code appears to be 28GB (like the compressed download files). Yikes. That’s probably the next step though!
Thanks again for the dedicated work testing the the software and hardware side of things as its only been a few weeks since these boards started reaching end users and their are bound to be issues but one can’t help but think they rushed the release despite having a protoboard available for testing that they then changed to something that’s cheap but still very buggy. The fact your work on the Orange Pi i96 rekindled interest in that tiny board that its now nearly impossible to find one unless you’re willing to pay insane asking deserves to be celebrated so congratulations but it shouldn’t be up to you and a few supporters to fix things yet it seems the manufactures are only in the business to make a quick buck and shuffle off to the next project leaving the community to work things out which sucks but all too common from eastern manufacturers… Sadly I’m well out of my depth’s with contributing any meaningful testing but once my adaptors and storage card arrive I will glad tryout your recommended benchmark tests and see how I go with getting the USB/s to connect to Wi-Fi and bluetooth but I read their are still many issues depending on the software version with suggestions to try out Chinese versions as these seem to have better driver support but unless you know somebody with access to the Baidu folders or rudimentary understanding of Chinese your left troubleshooting which is why its great blogs such as this exist as you guys do the heavy lifting so newbies like myself get to enjoy their shinny new play thing! Frankly 28GB for Android source code is insane but its to be expected and I hear that the xda developers are starting to get their boards which should see improvements on the Android side to match those of the traditional linux distributions that have been making some progress. I’m not sure if you’ve seen leeepspvideo on YouTube as he recently did a video installing Android on his 8GB Pi 5 with success but even he had issues with the SD card being rejected and it crashing 85% of the way through but from what he shows it looks as though this board is really meant for Android as its demonstrating great media and streaming with some issues with gpu acceleration but that’s common on the other RK3588 devices as Rockchip don’t want to share and he also has test videos of other RK3588 boards that seem to share the same issues such as not quite doing 4k60 fps as claimed and other bugs that we now see on the cheaper Pi 5. He’s more of a Raspberry Pi guy being a Brit but he’s been impressed with the Orange Pi 5 and just shared a sneak peak of the Beta version of Orange Pi OS that’s supposedly available to the Chinese testers so its encouraging to see them working hard but time will tell if they get it stable enough to release to the western audience and judging by reports its only a small team so what can they really do that hasn’t already been fixed knowing that the RK3588 SOC is a few years old already? I wish you continued success and await new updates with excitement as I feel that we’re almost there with many dedicated people behind the scenes frantically putting this board through its paces so good luck and take care!
Hey Razor Burn, No problem at all, I did get the Android source downloaded and it looks like it’s about 74GB total extracted. I’m sure the xda developers people will be able to do much more with it than me as well. They are the true Android specialists! I definitely have enough interest that I’ll keep doing some light investigation and leave the really heavy duty stuff to xda developers. I’m really excited to try Orange Pi OS for the Orange Pi 5 when it comes out. Thanks and take care!
