Remote Temperature Sensors: The Bugs
Mar. 6th, 2023 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carlfoxmartenI finally made an effort to try getting my second USB WiFi dongle to work today. First, trying it on Windows (the driver installed, but I couldn't figure out how to create a new, hosted WiFi network), then dredging through a whole bunch of forum posts to try to get it working on Linux.
With regards to WiFi drivers, Linux is both a Utopian Mecca, and a hellscape, at the same time.
On the one hand, lots of people are tweaking drivers to work with more chipsets and more Linux kernel versions. But on the other, the chipset names bear no resemblance to the model numbers of the devices using them, and some of the devices change chipsets depending on revision! So I have to search using several pieces of information and try each driver I find, until I find the one that works.
It took me about three or four drivers to find the right one, then I had to find someone else's adaptation of the official Asus copy of the driver. Fortunately, it worked once I got through the (relatively straightforward) process of installing the driver. And it's now working excellently well.
Then I ran into a problem with the NetworkManager program that actually manages all the network connections. Turns out, having two WiFi devices installed at the same time is supported, but if I didn't set it up to run my new, independent WiFi access point to run automatically when the device is plugged in, selecting the second WiFi device crashes the selection tool. I'll need to figure out how to report this bug, but with it set to launch automatically, I don't need to wait.
I am now ready to start trying to write this system! A sufficient amount of progress has been made.
Though I should probably get ready for some software version control, to be on the safe side. Much as I won't be releasing this source code any time soon, I'll want to make sure I have it all running smoothly before I start dumping code into both the remote device and the mini server I'll be writing.
It's a lot more progress than I was expecting to make today, so I'm pretty happy with myself.
With regards to WiFi drivers, Linux is both a Utopian Mecca, and a hellscape, at the same time.
On the one hand, lots of people are tweaking drivers to work with more chipsets and more Linux kernel versions. But on the other, the chipset names bear no resemblance to the model numbers of the devices using them, and some of the devices change chipsets depending on revision! So I have to search using several pieces of information and try each driver I find, until I find the one that works.
It took me about three or four drivers to find the right one, then I had to find someone else's adaptation of the official Asus copy of the driver. Fortunately, it worked once I got through the (relatively straightforward) process of installing the driver. And it's now working excellently well.
Then I ran into a problem with the NetworkManager program that actually manages all the network connections. Turns out, having two WiFi devices installed at the same time is supported, but if I didn't set it up to run my new, independent WiFi access point to run automatically when the device is plugged in, selecting the second WiFi device crashes the selection tool. I'll need to figure out how to report this bug, but with it set to launch automatically, I don't need to wait.
I am now ready to start trying to write this system! A sufficient amount of progress has been made.
Though I should probably get ready for some software version control, to be on the safe side. Much as I won't be releasing this source code any time soon, I'll want to make sure I have it all running smoothly before I start dumping code into both the remote device and the mini server I'll be writing.
It's a lot more progress than I was expecting to make today, so I'm pretty happy with myself.
