Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Solution
Several WiFi adapters work with the Bone. Check
WiFi Adapters
for the latest list.
To make this recipe, you will need:
▪ USB Wifi adapter (see
“Miscellaneous”
)
▪ 5 V external power supply (see
“Miscellaneous”
)
WARNING
Most adapters need at least 1 A of current to run, and USB supplies only 0.5 A, so be sure to
use an external power supply. Otherwise, you will experience erratic behavior and random
crashes.
First, plug in the WiFi adapter and the 5 V external power supply and reboot.
Then run
lsusb
to ensure that your Bone found the adapter:
bone#
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
RTL8188CUS 802.11n
WLAN Adapter
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
NOTE
There is a well-known bug in the Bone's 3.8 kernel series that prevents USB devices from be-
ing discovered when hot-plugged, which is why you should reboot. Newer kernels should ad-
dress this issue.
Next, run
iwconfig
to find your adapter's name. Mine is called
wlan0
, but you might
see other other names, such as
ra0
.
