TP-Link TL-WN722N v2

J

jiaxing

Does FreeBSD support this dongle? I installed FreeBSD on Vbox on Linux but it isn't as smooth as Linux guest. The mouse, apart from having an annoying extra back button also seemed to be lagging. It's not move as fast and smooth as Linux. I also have to click to the VM to capture the mouse. The Linux guest doesn't need this, I can move the mouse freely between host and guest as it auto capture and release the mouse.

Note: I set up everything properly for the FreeBSD VM so it's not about missing guest addition.

So I decided to give FreeBSD a try on my second HDD. The only problem now is this dongle. Please let me know if it works under FreeBSD or not, so I will not waste time migrating TBs of data off the HDD before dedicate it for FreeBSD. Thanks.
 
The same model number of that USB WiFi adapter may be used for different chipsets. I have one which is working (at least) in station mode.
I'd suggest running usbconfig() to get more information on the device:
Code: 
# usbconfig list
# usbconfig X.Y dump_device_desc
where X and Y are the <busnum> and <devaddr> from the output of the first command.
 
I'm not on FreeBSD so I can't post the result of usbconfig. But it's from inxi on Linux:

Code: 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
           vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0
           chip ID: 10ec:8168
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Device-2: TP-Link TL-WN722N v2 type: USB driver: r8188eu bus ID: 2-7:3
           chip ID: 2357:010c serial: <filter>
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
 
Do I need to use the latest version of FreeBSD, 12.1, to get the driver? I usually stick with the oldest but still supported version and upgrade later. I'm still using Debian 8 oldoldstable, lol. Does the driver work with FreeBSD 11.3?

Is there any graphical tool to manage Wifi network like NetworkManager on Linux? I think I will miss NetworkManager very much, but doing wpa_supplicant by hand also OK.

p/s: I installed kernel 4.19 on Linux, though. This dongle will not work with kernel 3.16 provided by Debian 8. As it requires a fairly new Linux kernel so I'm think I will need a fairly new FreeBSD version, too.
 
jiaxing said:
Please let me know if it works under FreeBSD or not, so I will not waste time migrating TBs of data off the HDD before dedicate it for FreeBSD.
Click to expand...
To make sure of the support, before installing on hard disk, you could boot a FreeBSD installation image with the wifi dongle plugged in, and check there.
 
jiaxing said:
Do I need to use the latest version of FreeBSD, 12.1, to get the driver?
....
Does the driver work with FreeBSD 11.3?
Click to expand...
Sigh! Nobody reads manuals. From urtwn(4):
Code: 
HISTORY
     The urtwn driver first appeared in    OpenBSD    4.9 and    FreeBSD    10.0.
jiaxing said:
Is there any graphical tool to manage Wifi network like NetworkManager on Linux?
Click to expand...
There is sysutils/pc-networkmanager, but I never used it. If the dongle is fully supported you can configure it during installation.
 
I found a similar one but of version 2.1, plugged it in, dmesg():
Code: 
....
ugen0.6: <Realtek 802.11n NIC> at usbus0
rtwn0 numa-domain 0 on uhub2
rtwn0: <Realtek 802.11n NIC, class 0/0, rev 2.00/0.00, addr 10> on usbus0
rtwn0: MAC/BB RTL8188EU, RF 6052 1T1R
I loaded the firmware:
Code: 
# kldload rtwn-rtl8188eufw
However, something is still missing:
Code: 
# ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev urtwn0
ifconfig: SIOCIFCREATE2: Device not configured

[EDIT] As you can see dmesg() reports "rev 2.00", but it has "V2.1" printed on the plastic case.
 
SirDice said:
Just because the driver has existed since 10.0, doesn't mean this specific chipset is supported by the driver. New chipset variants are added all the time.
Click to expand...
You are so right. I installed FreeBSD 12.1. I grepped the whole /boot/modules and /boot/kernel without found anything named if_urtwn other than a single urtwn.ko. After searching a while I found FreeBSD 12.0 merge urtwn to rtwn. I followed this tutorial and could have network up and working but I found everytime I reboot the rtwn0 device disappear, I have to use ifconfig to create it again. Don't know why. The GhostBSD live usb does detect and load the driver automatically but after I installed it it doesn't create the rtwn0 device for me even though it already put on my rc.conf these line:

Code: 
wlans_rtwn0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

Another weird thing is I can only connect using networkmgr but not the plain wpa_supplicant.conf and the network speed is very poor, I think just 1/4 the speed on Linux: 1260Kb/s vs 5.4Mb/s. I think I would better on Linux and keep BSD on VBox. BSD really doesn't like Wifi.
 
Most likely it requires license acknowledgement, but is there a different way except of adding it to /boot/loader.conf?
Code: 
....
legal.realtek.license_ack=1
I cannot reboot my computer now and in the next few days to check, is it possible to acknowledge without rebooting?
 
aragats said:
Most likely it requires license acknowledgement, but is there a different way except of adding it to /boot/loader.conf?
Code: 
....
legal.realtek.license_ack=1
I cannot reboot my computer now and in the next few days to check, is it possible to acknowledge without rebooting?
Click to expand...
I don't know but the GhostBSD I installed doesn't need this line it will automatically load the driver but it doesn't obey rc.conf to create the rtwn0 device, I have to manually create it everytime with ifconfig. Don't know why but it does create the device automatically for me when I run it live version.

I don't know why but this GhostBSD is awesome but very unstable. It's very beautiful but sometime it just stuck at Saving dependencies cache... and will not allow me to poweroff without using reset button. When I followed the tutorial I mentioned above to restart the netif service it just said there is no netif service to stop. I think we should update the document, it's outdated.
 
aragats said:
is it possible to acknowledge without rebooting?
Click to expand...
I'm not exactly sure when the check happens. You could try to simply unload and load the module, the check may happen when the module is initialized.
 
Wait. Doesn't GhostBSD and FreeBSD the same system? Just like Ubuntu to Debian? I found something wrong. Many commands on the handbook not worked.
 
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