Linux driver installation nightmare

[Jstagzsr]

rock64

Arm

linux, ubuntu 18.04 bionic LXDE (i have no idea what any of that means)

 

i dont even know what specs to list here to let you guys know what it is i have.. lol.. i bought a rock64 because ive been doing a ton of arduino projects and wanted to move up to something that could have a real video output and the rockpi does 4k 60 so that was the winner.. but i have absolutely no idea what im doing with any of the available operating systems or distros as theyre apparently called on linux. i have about 12 hours experience total with anything linux. besides recallbox but that doesnt count. thats extremely easy. with this, something as simple as installing the drivers for the freaking wifi adapter has taken me 6 hours so far of googling and researching and trying every single thing in terminal that ive read anywhere online.. including from forums 10+ years old.. my mind is blown to why anyone would WANT this level of irritation and complications for their primary OS.. can someone PLEASE help me get this thing going.. all i want is to not have my ethernet cord drapped across the living room to get this stupid thing online from my desk. im not even gonna worry about any other issue i'll likely have rn because if i cant even figure out how to install a driver im just gonna sell it on ebay and forget the whole thing. unbelievable how irritating this is. i have a cd that came with the adapter and theres a file in that disk that says "install" that brings up a "vim" page of code but does literally nothing.. im either doings omething wrong or something is not compatible or something is not functioning properly. i have no idea which.

the pix are:
the board

the case

the front packaging of wifi adapter

the rear packaging of wifi adapter

the name of the adapter in windows device manager (realtek 8811CU....)

the adapter itself

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, Jstagzsr said:

my mind is blown to why anyone would WANT this level of irritation and complications for their primary OS

So you buy a relatively obscure single board computer, you have no experience with either SBCs or Linux and yet you expect to just waltz in and magically know how to use it? If you had never seen Windows in your life do you think you'd know how to install a driver?

 

10 seconds of googling yielded this https://www.prado.lt/how-to-install-realtek-8811cu-wireless-lan-802-11ac-usb-nic-on-ubuntu-19-04

which shows you how to install the driver in 3 steps.

If you don't have the required packages installed just run the following before the website's instructions:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r) git make gcc

also FYI, Vim is a command line text editor.

[Jstagzsr]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

So you buy a relatively obscure single board computer, you have no experience with either SBCs or Linux and yet you expect to just waltz in and magically know how to use it? If you had never seen Windows in your life do you think you'd know how to install a driver?

 

10 seconds of googling yielded this https://www.prado.lt/how-to-install-realtek-8811cu-wireless-lan-802-11ac-usb-nic-on-ubuntu-19-04

which shows you how to install the driver in 3 steps.

If you don't have the required packages installed just run the following before the website's instructions:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r) git make gcc

also FYI, Vim is a command line text editor.

 pine64 is actually a well established brand with a probably over 100 products including full arm based laptops and several sbc's of varying power and a sh!t ton of "shields" (idk what theyre called in the sbc world). i wouldnt call that obscure. theyve been out since 2015 when they had massive success on kickstarter with the pine64 sbc. if they were some random company nobody has ever heard of and used all proprietary hardware then yeah i could see this much headache being a thing. But like i said i was literally online for 6 straight hours typing in every single piece of code i could find in every single forum and video that said they had the way to make this work. including that exact page. and including that exact code on other forums and videos. which didnt work.. and nothing worked. whic is why i said either im doing something wrong (unlikely) or something is malfunctioning or something is not compatible.

and yes, there was a time long ago that i didnt know a thing about windows either. i started using computers on macs way back in like first grade. i didnt even see a windows computer till i was old enough to buy my own laptop. and it was XP. and drivers and mostly everything else was as easy to install as double clicking the driver and letting it install.

and no, obviously i didnt have the unrealistic expectations of never having any linux experience but yet somehow knowing everything about it on day one. but everyone starts somewhere. and nothing should be this hard to work with.

[Nayr438]

9 minutes ago, Jstagzsr said:

 pine64 is actually a well established brand with a probably over 100 products including full arm based laptops and several sbc's of varying power and a sh!t ton of "shields" (idk what theyre called in the sbc world). i wouldnt call that obscure. theyve been out since 2015 when they had massive success on kickstarter with the pine64 sbc. if they were some random company nobody has ever heard of and used all proprietary hardware then yeah i could see this much headache being a thing. But like i said i was literally online for 6 straight hours typing in every single piece of code i could find in every single forum and video that said they had the way to make this work. including that exact page. and including that exact code on other forums and videos. which didnt work.. and nothing worked. whic is why i said either im doing something wrong (unlikely) or something is malfunctioning or something is not compatible.

and yes, there was a time long ago that i didnt know a thing about windows either. i started using computers on macs way back in like first grade. i didnt even see a windows computer till i was old enough to buy my own laptop. and it was XP. and drivers and mostly everything else was as easy to install as double clicking the driver and letting it install.

and no, obviously i didnt have the unrealistic expectations of never having any linux experience but yet somehow knowing everything about it on day one. but everyone starts somewhere. and nothing should be this hard to work with.

Realtek devices in Linux are really hit and miss. That driver in the post above was never actually intended for your device, it was just known as a compatible driver, maybe for a specific revision. Most manufacturers don't make Linux Drivers, the community does.  I don't know what all USB Wifi devices are supported, but these 2 are probably the most common. CanaKit Raspberry Pi WiFi Wireless Adapter  Panda 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter

 

 

 

[Jstagzsr]

7 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Realtek devices in Linux are really hit and miss. That driver in the post above was never actually intended for your device, it was just known as a compatible driver, maybe for a specific revision. Most manufacturers don't make Linux Drivers, the community does.  I don't know what all USB Wifi devices are supported, but these 2 are probably the most common. CanaKit Raspberry Pi WiFi Wireless Adapter  Panda 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter

 

 

 

im gonna try it right meow. ty!

edit: oh, i thought those were links to code. lol.

the package says itll work on linux. and theres a driver cd it came with that i was able to load on the sbc with an external cd drive. i can access it and everything looks fine. i just dont know how to install anything from the disk. theres a linux folder in it. ill take a pic.

[Jstagzsr]

[Nayr438]

5 minutes ago, Jstagzsr said:

Open a terminal in that folder and run sudo ./install.sh

[Jstagzsr]

4 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Open a terminal in that folder and run sudo ./install.sh

 

[Nayr438]

2 minutes ago, Jstagzsr said:

 

you miss an l.    sudo ./install.sh   you may be able to right click on the file and choose run in terminal. Im not familiar with lxde or the file manager your using, but it is an option in some.

[Jstagzsr]

oops, i spelled "install" wrong.. but i tried it again with it spelled correctly and it gave me the same result. "command not found"

[Jstagzsr]

[Nayr438]

Try sudo sh ./install.sh

[Nayr438]

Some file browsers also have the option to right click on them and select run in terminal as a option.

[Jstagzsr]

3 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Try sudo sh ./install.sh

 

[Jstagzsr]

When I right click the install file it gives me the option to run it in terminal but when I try to nothing happens. Nothing opens. Literally nothing at all happens. The only way that I can get anything to happen is if I tell it to open with vim. And that just gives me a big huge long page of code that I have no idea what to do with

[Nayr438]

It ran, there was just an error. looks like its usually a relatively old driver. I do have to go to work for the time being, but if you can upload that folder somewhere for me to download, I can look at it and see what's wrong when i get back.

[Jstagzsr]

3 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

It ran, there was just an error. looks like its usually a relatively old driver. I do have to go to work for the time being, but if you can upload that folder somewhere for me to download, I can look at it and see what's wrong when i get back.

yeah ill pull it off the cd and upload it anywhere you like. do you have a place you prefer?

and thank you for taking the time to help me with this!

[elsandosgrande]

After about a minute on DuckDuckGo, here's what I found: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/84508/building-drivers-for-rtl8811cu-rtl8821cu

After two minutes, I think that I found a winner: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52305815/issue-with-realtek-8811cu-installation-script

[Jstagzsr]

On 12/7/2019 at 6:31 AM, elsandosgrande said:

After about a minute on DuckDuckGo, here's what I found: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/84508/building-drivers-for-rtl8811cu-rtl8821cu

After two minutes, I think that I found a winner: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52305815/issue-with-realtek-8811cu-installation-script

ive tried those before and i just tried it again to double check and im still getting errors and its still not working.

[wasab]

Try drag and drop the file into the terminal. You probabaly are not in the same working directory as the .sh file.