netsplit
n00b
Joined: 10 Jun 2024
Posts: 7
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 Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2024 4:29 pm Post subject: AWUS036AXML USB (802.11AXE MT7921au) weird issues |
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So long story short been getting this working on my laptop. I was disappointed to discovered my HP laptop had a wifi whitelist when I tried to install an Intel 210 AXE wifi module that I confirmed working on a much older laptop also running Gentoo. Linux couldn't see the wifi device, but it could see the bluetooth. The HP forums indicitaed HP had resumed whitelisting wifi cards. Total BS. Avoid HP.
So I figured I don't really need to ever take my laptop through airport security, and attached an AWUS036AXML USB adapter to my laptop lid using double sided tape, and a 180 degree USB adapter. Looks like 80s cyberpunk with the antennas.
The biggest issue is it straight up would error out and not initialize. The fix turned out to be blacklisting bluetooth modules:
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
| Code: | blacklist btrtl
blacklist btusb |
Apparently there's some conflict with my laptop's builtin bluetooth. This would cause the drivers to not load. I haven't been able to figure out how to make it work with bluetooth, but I don't use bluetooth very much on my laptop. So it hasn't been much of a priority.
Anyway this got 2.4GHz, and 5GHz bands working, however my 6GHz AP would show up but when I tried to connect would error out. I eventually figured out when it connected to 5GHz it would do so using the regulatory domain US: DFS-FCC, however when I tried connecting to 6GHz it would switch to country 98: DFS-UNSET. This it would block 6GHz and the connection would fail. Then it would immediately switch back to the US one. This behavior was very tricky to uncover and confused me for months because when ever I'd check, it'd say US. As far as I could tell it just magically didn't work.
Once I discovered the error I tried using iw reg set US and suddenly I could connect to 6GHz as many times as I tested until reboot. I created this service:
/etc/init.d/regdom
| Code: | #!/sbin/openrc-run
command="iw"
command_args="reg set US"
description="Fix 6 GHz WiFi"
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Then set it to run at boot with:
rc-update add regdom default
Now 6GHz works on boot. I'm happy this works but my understanding is this shouldn't work. Reading about iw reg set, it should be more restrictive, adding the US restrictions to the DFS-UNSET ones, not opening up entire bands.
So my goal with this ramble is to document the hacks to get this thing working for the next person who might need them, and to ask if there's a better fix? And if anyone knows how to make bluetooth compatible? |
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Networking & Security
