Wifi not working with the WIFI A8 Module on Rock Pi 3 A

#1

For the record, I haven’t been able to find the relevant hardware instructions for the WIFI A8 module (the RTL8852be) within the radxa’s wiki.

I’ve been trying to create a custom Linux image using buildroot.rockchip and hadn’t have any success with getting the module working.

These are the options I’m using in the defconfig file:

…
BR2_PACKAGE_LINUX_FIRMWARE=y
BR2_PACKAGE_IW=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WIRELESS_TOOLS=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_NL80211=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_WIRED=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_IBSS_RSN=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_AP_SUPPORT=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_WIFI_DISPLAY=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_MESH_NETWORKING=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_AUTOSCAN=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_WPS=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_WPA3=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_CLI=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_WPA_CLIENT_SO=y
BR2_PACKAGE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_PASSPHRASE=y
…

Also, this is the wireless configuration I have for the networking support in the linux-menuconfig:

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I’ll keep you updated with my findings.

#2

So far I haven’t been able to find anything related to the module RTL8852BE within the Rockchip’s DTS overlays.

What I’ve noticed so far is that apparently the board is being recognized

# lspci
00:00.0 PCI bridge: Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd RK3568 Remote Signal Processor (rev 01)
01:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device b852

but I’m still unable to make it work, i.e it doesn’t appear as a network interface

# ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq qlen 1000
link/ether 5a:15:dd:2a:d3:79 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

This answer of the unix stack exchange suggests that maybe the kernel version I’m dealing with (4.16) may be too old to support this series of wifi cards. I might need to install the driver listed in that answer.

#3

You can’t find overlay because the module uses standard PCIe and USB interface, both support hardware detection.

Here is the 8852BE WiFi driver and here is the Bluetooth driver.