No wonder Microsoft has more installations of its operating system around the world.

No wonder Microsoft has more installations of its operating system around the world.

I went to Jaycar the other day and bought another wifi dongle to use on the Raspberry Pi for JMRI and Wireless control of trains. I had setup my test beast happily and it worked, so I was now onto building up a setup for the clubs' N scale exhibition layout. The dongle is the same make/model etc - almost…

On my old Microsoft XP laptop, you just insert the dongle, insert the CD, run the installer and it all works – simple – easy - wonderful – even Jon Arbuckle could do it!

And of course the new dongle just doesn’t want to work on the Raspberry-Pi, does it. The old dongle is based on a Realtek RTL8188EUS chip and this new one that is now sold by Jaycar is based on the Realtek RTL8188EU chip. You’d think it would be the same driver wouldn’t you – nope.

I have found a few helpful websites out there, but gee whiz, slap my arse and call me Sally, is it a roundabout way to do things. It appears every single version of Raspian has a different driver for this chip and you have to find the damn thing first. But of course if you ever figure out how to do it, next time you patch the operating system with an update – you’ll need to go find a new driver for the wifi dongle and install that one.

ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So I have stuffed all the R-Pi parts into a box and placed it into the corner for now – the box has now been designated the Too Hard Basket. I'll go look at it in another few days I reckon.