Update: this Wifi adapter is now supported out of the box on an up-to-date BELABOX installation. You don't need to do any of this.

EDIMax 7811Un v2 Installation

This doc is meant to serve as a brief walkthrough to install the Linux driver for the EDIMax 7811UnV2 USB Wifi adapter. As you may know, the 7811Un v1 adapter has the kernel driver shipped with most linux distributions already, however the version 2 of the USB adapter is not. Unfortunately, knowing (for sure) which adapter you purchase isn't a given until you've received the USB adapter.

In use, both cards appear to provide an equal set of function and features. I hope this document provides enough information for you to get your adapter working as expected.

warning

I'd recommend completing the installation with the USB adapter unplugged. After you complete the install you should reboot your Belabox. Once fully booted, you can plug-in your USB adapter and all should be good

As a final aside, I wrote this specifically for my use with the Belabox deployment, but the overall instructions should apply to any Linux distro (package names may be different). Lastly, you may notice my use of the double ampersand (&&). This is a short-cut in Bash that tells the shell to run a second command only after the first command has exited successfully.

Prerequisites

You'll need to download the driver itself from the EDIMax website

• EW-7811Un V2 Linux Driver

You'll need to install a compiler and related tools, typically grouped by installing build-essential. Additionally you'll need to install the bc package

From a terminal on the Belabox (or your Linux box of choice)

user@belabox:~$ mkdir edimax && cd edimax
user@belabox:~/edimax$ wget https://www.edimax.com/edimax/mw/cufiles/files/download/Driver_Utility/EW-7811Un_V2/EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3.zip
user@belabox:~/edimax$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential bc unzip
user@belabox:~/edimax$ unzip EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3.zip && cd EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3/

Assuming no problems have occured thus far, you've downloaded the EDIMax driver, updated the package repo and installed the necessary tools to build the driver, and extracted the contents of the zip in prep for compiling.

For installing on the nVidia Jetson Nano:

user@belabox:~/edimax/EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3$ export ARCH=arm64
user@belabox:~/edimax/EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3$ make && make install

For installing on x86 or amd64:

user@belabox:~/edimax/EW-7811Un_V2_Linux_Driver_1.0.1.3$ make && make install

If you've made it this far without running into an error, then w00t. From here, you can connect to the web interface (ideally while the host is connected via ethernet with a known IP). Once in the BelaUI, you can configure the WLAN adapter as you normally would.

If you have run into an error I'd love some feedback. It's very likely that I skipped a step in the documentation that I took for granted when I performed the installation myself - my apologies.

Extra, Extra!

I found it useful to also install the pciutils and usbutils package to identify PCI and USB devices on the Belabox. Primarily to ensure I knew which devices were being plugged in. These are not necessary assuming you're using known working hardware, I think rationalirl has done a good job including support for known working gear. It's just nice to have the extra tools available when needed.

user@belabox:~$ sudo apt install pciutils usbutils

user@belabox:~$ lspci
00:02.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0faf (rev a1)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 19)

user@belabox:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 7392:b811 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub