In 2017 I bought a TPE-N150USB wifi adapter from ThinkPenguin because I wanted libre driver and libre firmware. I have already written a short how-to to make it work under Debian Jessie (Debian 8).
Recently I tried to use the wifi adapter with NextThing Chip (armhf board) and failed hard. Then I tried my Libreboot T400 running Debian Stretch and also failed! This was rather unexpected. I lost a couple of hours because I thought the problem is a software not a firmware/kernel issue.
So far I have one working solution:
Install the files from the debian firmware-ath9k-htc package currently available for sid and buster (testing).
It worked great with my Laptop without further issues. It did also work with NextThing Chip but I had to use the hack from the ThinkPenguin page (wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=0) to make a succesful connection.
- Interesting links:
Further investigation and additional tests are necessary. I am also going to contact ThinkPenguin about this issue.
If you have any questions, suggestions, thoughts and comments please feel free to email me.
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