Using a TP-Link TL-WN725N USB Wifi Adapter on a Raspberry Pi

For those that purchased a TP-Link TL-WN725N because it was really cheap and didn't bother to check the linux driver support for it... oops

Well here's your fix.

This is been tested on raspbian on the rpi (raspberry pi), your mileage may vary on other operating systems and architectures.

First, in order to compile drivers for linux, we need the linux headers.  Running rpi-update does not provide the headers in with the update since the kernel is precompiled.  What we have to do is find the headers for the current commit of the kernel installed.  We do this by running an awesome tool called rpi-source which downloads the correct headers for your specific kernel version that is currently installed on your rpi.

run in a directory of your choice:

sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notro/rpi-source/master/rpi-source -O /usr/bin/rpi-source && sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-source && /usr/bin/rpi-source -q --tag-update

If you get a message that states "gcc version check: mismatch between gcc (4.6.3) and /proc/version (4.7.2) Skip this check with --skip-gcc", you can simply ignore it by running "rpi-source --skip-gcc"

What this will do is create and install the headers and modules in your /lib/modules/ folder.  Now that you have the kernel headers installed, we can move on to compiling the driver.  The following comes straight from the examples used for the "rpi-source" repository on github.

You may read and follow the directions here:

https://github.com/notro/rpi-source/wiki/Examples-on-how-to-build-various-modules#tp-link-tl-wn725n-version-2-lwfinger

Otherwise just follow the instructions below which is copied and pasted from the repository:

______________________________________________________________________________

$ uname -a

Linux raspberrypi 3.12.21+ #1 PREEMPT Sat Jun 14 13:44:18 CEST 2014 armv6l GNU/Linux

$ git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8188eu.git

$ cd rtl8188eu

$ make all

$ sudo make install

$ sudo depmod

$ sudo modprobe 8188eu

$ lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

8188eu                796381  0

______________________________________________________________________________

After that, you should have a working TL-WN725N wifi adapter.

Major props goes to the developer of rpi-source and for the open source 8188eu driver for the wifi adapter.

Enjoy!