after a wi fi dongle

Hi

elinux has a verified wifi dongle list available:

http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#USB_WiFi_Adapters

There are drivers available for those listed on the site.

many thanks

What I have already purchased, in the hope that it will be suitable, is an Edimax EW-7811UN Wireless 802.11b/g/n 150Mbps Nano USB Adaptor which is claimed to be the "world's smallest!" although similar sized models are available from other manufacturers.

It is quoted as being Linux compatible, and cost me just under £10 from Amazon (UK).

Unfortunately I shant be able to check out full compatability until I actually receive my Raspberry Pi computer, but it certainly is small!

Good choice! I dont expect there will be a problem with this device, especially if they say it is fully Linux compatible!

may have to get one of these nano ones then.

I bought:

http://www.buyincoins.com/details/usb-150m-wifi-wireless-lan-network-card-adapter-antenna-product-1916.html

I plugged it into my Linux box, and it worked. That is, I could list the access points out here, but as I have a wired gigabit ethernet connection I didn't need it to work any further so now it's waiting for my RPI....

What I like about this one is that I might be able to extend the antenna with  a cable. Or I can use a directional antenna.

I have a Pi and Edimax EW-7811UN and the bad news is that I have been struggling all weekend to get it working. As far as I can tell there is very patchy linux support for this chipset. I would be interested to know if anyone gets this working.

I suggest you look at http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Devices/USB to get an idea of which wireless chipsets are supported in Linux in general. A subset of these will work on the R-Pi, since it is ARM architecture, which excludes i386 binaries.

I have had success with TP-Link TL-WN722n. It's detected by the kernel and Ath9k_htc firmware loads fine on Arch, but needs firmware file with the Debian image. However, it still needs a bit of set up, and won't work directly from the Pi USB port, probably due to power requirements.

Hi - it looks like this is the adapter, right?  http://wikidevi.com/wiki/Edimax_EW-7811Un

Not sure if you seen this, but check out this thread for that chipset: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/troubleshooting/trying-to-get-an-rtl8188cus-wireless-usb-nic-working/#p67851

ajtag compiled the kernel module and provides a link to download 8192cu.ko.

Looking at modinfo, it looks like it should support the device per the USB ID on the WikiDev entry (if that is the same model as what you have):

afustini@lappy486:~/Downloads$ modinfo 8192cu.ko  |grep 7811

alias:          usb:v7392p7811d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*

Cheers,

Drew

Thanks, I'll give it a go and report back.

Sounds like I have the same adapter, the USB ID matches.

Recompiling the kernel sounds a bit daunting, but hopefully the kernel module will do the job.

To the OP: Another good resource for checking wi-fi dongle compatability is here http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

I don't think you should have to recompile the kernel.  Just download 8192cu.ko and copy to the path on the SD card as user ajtag demonstrates in that post.