Brostrend Wifi Adapter doesn't work with new kernel

Ask Fedora
1

Hi Everyone,

Initially the Brostrend wifi adapter worked really well with my installation but now it seems to not work with the newest kernel.

I live in an older house so ethernet unfortunately isn’t really an option for my computer. Is there any way to troubleshoot this to get it working again or can anyone recommend a good wifi adapter that can connect to USB to replace this with?

I emailed support already and they claimed that their official driver does not support fedora, which generally wasn’t true or the case for about 2 years now. It worked perfectly.

Thanks.

2

There have been a lot of reports with problems from the latest kernel (6.13) so it might fix itself in a couple or weeks or you could try 6.12 again.

Many providers say they dont support Fedora, but Fedora supports many wifi devices.

Your Brostrend is most likely repackaging another companies chipset, maybe for example a Realtek.

So you need to find the chipset of the device and troubleshoot that.

If you look it up, or if you can’t find it post the exact model, someone might know.

Try running

sudo lspci | grep -i wireless

With your wifi device plugged in, and look for the driver.

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/wifi-display-realtime-info

3

It is not unusual to have problems with a new kernel and WiFi hardware, and more likely with hardware that doesn’t use drivers from kernel.org. I find it important to have a USB WiFi adapter for times when the driver breaks. It is a bit misleading for vendors to say they don’t support Fedora when the reality is that they don’t provide drivers through kernel.org and don’t start addressing issues until a new kernel is released. Brostrend sells a range of WiFi adapters, so you need to be more specific about the model you are using.

See USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux for help choosing a USB WiFi adapter.

4

I ended up installing the latest and naturally, it didn’t work. I think it’s the kernel more than anything.

There was already a nvidia issue with it (albeit fixed very quickly) so it sounds like the kernel just needs a bit of work. With that said this isn’t my first rodeo with issues as you can see from my post history. After about two years of fedora I’ve learned to expect for things to not always be perfect (same can be said about any OS, Frankly) :grin:

With this said I’d still stick with fedora over any other OS hands down.

With that said I’ll take a look at the Realtek driver. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if you’re on the money with that.

Also when i run the command nothing shows up for some reason. Maybe I should add that this is a USB Adapter that I’m having issues with?

Thanks.

5

I’ll take a look at this. I’m actually sort of used to a lot of Fedora issues being solved by just sitting and waiting.

6

Hi all,
I have the same issue with the same USB WIFI adapter.

$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0bda:1a2b Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188GU 802.11n WLAN Adapter (Driver CDROM Mode)

Don’t know what means (Driver CDROM Mode).

I’m running Fedora 40 and the last kernel update broke the driver.
I was running 6.12.15-100.fc40.x86_64 and updated to 6.13.4-100.fc40.x86_64.

I think it was using an extra module /usr/lib/modules/6.12.15-100.fc40.x86_64/extra/8852bu.ko.xz, that is still there.

Any idea about making it work again?

Thank you.

1 Like
7

I think I focused on the wrong module. Booting with the old Kernel it doesn’t claim that device.
This adapter doesn’t function anymore even with the previous kernel (it worked until yesterday).

How strange!

8

Sometimes you need to fully reset a wifi device with power off (or unplug USB dongle) after it has gone AWOL.

You may find some useful details with journalctl. In a terminal, try: journalctl --no-hostname -b -g wifi.

9

Already done that. it was the first thing. When you plug the USB device, no driver claims it.

10

Sometimes a driver is removed from newer kernels. For older drivers, the maintainer may have moved on. The Linux kernel is adding checks for standards compliance that will break some drivers. For Realtek, see https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapter_out-of-kernel_drivers_for_Linux.md

11

The question is if they want to discontinue the driver (as is their right) what USB wifi adapters do we buy? Any that can be recommended, expecially that work out of the box?

I’m not in a massive rush for this but realistically if the new kernel won’t support my Brostrends it’s clear i’ll need to find something new. :grin:

12

George put a link up GitHub - morrownr/USB-WiFi: USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux in the post above that answers that question.

For simplicity, Realtek, Broadcom, Intel and Mediatek chips should all work.

If you just want one end-user brand recommendation I use TP-Link.

13

I did actually buy myself a tp-link axe5400 Archer TXE70UH but it doesn’t seem like it works.

Is there any troubleshooting advise you can give me?

14

Oh you got a new expensive one :slight_smile: I like the cheap old ones :wink:

You need to find the chipset.

Install PCIutils

sudo dnf install pciutils

Then run it

lspci

And find the network adaptor, hopefully it gives us some info we need. You can post the output here in preformatted text.

15

TP-Link’s page for that model doesn’t mention the WiFi chipset (some vendors use a variety of chipsets for the same model). You need to determine the actual chipset. What does “inxi -Nzxx” report for WiFi?

16

Yeah i usually like the expensive new ones since our wifi coverage is sort of bad. I’m on the second floor and our access point is in the basement. not exactly a desireable place for someone so eager to play games :grin:

I already had PCutils installed. The command didn’t see to do much to start it I’m afraid.

Here’s what i get running that command:

[brett@fedora ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne IOMMU
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:02.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir Internal PCIe GPP Bridge to Bus
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 51)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 7
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Lite Hash Rate] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset USB 3.1 XHCI Controller
02:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset SATA Controller
02:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset Switch Upstream Port
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
03:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
03:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
05:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Black SN850X NVMe SSD (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
07:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Green SN350 240GB (DRAM-less) / SN560E NVMe SSD (rev 01)
08:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Raven/Raven2 PCIe Dummy Function (rev c8)
08:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio Controller
08:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) Platform Security Processor
08:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio Controller

Please keep in mind I ran this without the device plugged in. If you’d like me to plug it in I can do that.

17

Yeah if this one doesn’t work I’m going to use one of the recommended. I think i went in with the false assumption that anything from TP-Link would work.

As for your question I’m not entirely sure what command I need to run to show this, sorry to say.

18

Yes you will need to plug the device in to have the lspci command report on the device.

As for George’s command, with the device plugged in, run

inxi -Nzxx

These commands are diagnostic commands so we can find the chipset of the device before we can see if the driver in installed or avilable. They will not make it work yet.

As a note, 2.4 Ghz wifi has better range and signal penetration that 5Ghz or 6Ghz.

19

Hey MatH I had a feeling. I’m just a little new to the guts of linux.

Here’s the output of George’s command:

Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: ASUSTeK RTL8111H driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s
lanes: 1 port: e000 bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
Device-2: Realtek 802.11ax WLAN Adapter driver: N/A type: USB rev: 2.0
speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-1:11 chip-ID: 35bc:0102

and as for yours:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne IOMMU
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:02.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir Internal PCIe GPP Bridge to Bus
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 51)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 7
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Lite Hash Rate] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset USB 3.1 XHCI Controller
02:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset SATA Controller
02:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 500 Series Chipset Switch Upstream Port
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
03:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
03:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43ea
05:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Black SN850X NVMe SSD (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
07:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Green SN350 240GB (DRAM-less) / SN560E NVMe SSD (rev 01)
08:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Raven/Raven2 PCIe Dummy Function (rev c8)
08:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio Controller
08:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) Platform Security Processor
08:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio Controller

I suppose It’s a RealTek device in any case?

20

The inxi output shows us it is a Realtek ax device. It is not showing us the exact chipset though.
The lspci command is not showing the wifi device. The RTL 8111 is your ethernet LAN.

I have to go away from computer until tomorrow, so someone else might chime in. But one last thing to try is to see if linux-firmware is installed.
Run

sudo dnf install linux-firmware

It might if you are lucky bring in the required drivers otherwise we will have to dig a little more. Check your device is plugged in and if you can get the lspci to return another network controller.

And don’t worry, we are all new at linux once (or twice). It only takes a couple of years :slight_smile: