Issue of the topic: how to configure wifi on an raspberry b with extrnal USB-Wifi-Stick
Hi,
I can‘t find a description how to config the above mentioned Wifi solution. If I try to use openhabian-conf and start the Wifi configuration, I get a message that this option is only supported by raspi 3 and younger.
What do I have to to if I use an external USB stick for the wifi feature?
I am not a linux expert and therefor I used the openhabian distribution. my fear is that if I first have to discover which linux distribution forum ( debian, raspberry, and so on ) could provide a solution for it, this solution doesn’t work for my distribution as it may has some specialities. this happened several times in the past.
That is why I described my problem in this community.
The Openhabian image is just repackaged Raspbian but they remove the normal raspi-config.
From your initial post I thought you had installed openHABian on Raspbian like I usually do. Sorry for the tone.
Perhaps the openHABian image will not work reliably on a Pi 2. If I were you at this point I would likely install NOOBS on the card, choose Raspbian Lite and get Wi-Fi working using raspi-config. Then follow the openHABian installation instructions for Linux. You basically end up with the same system.
but if I install noobs now I loose all my steps that I‘ve done so far. i am a newbee and I was working my way through the documentation and I successfully installed the server, created bindings, things, installed controls and so on.
in oder not to waste time I used the ethernet interface to get in to my home network. so it is not very urgent to solve this issue, but later on the raspi should work with wifi instead.
NOOBS just provides an easy way of installing Raspbian which would your card. You can backup your openHAB configuration and copy it off the card first.
To install Raspbian it may be best to follow the official steps here. https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up
Adding a WiFi USB stick (to a RPi2) is not supported in openHABian.
It is something completely different that to use builtin WiFi in RPi3/4 if you try looking at it from the ‘vendor’ perspective (= openHABian developers).
Yes you can get it to work (my openHABian dev box in fact is right the same a RPi2 w/ USB Wifi).
But there’s many options and variations on HW, drivers, config options etc, far too many to actively support. Builtin WiFi on RPi3/4 is way simpler because it’s a SINGLE hardware, SINGLE driver, ONE config set and so on.
So if you want to get your stick running you have to do that on your own, as Bruce recommended go visit a RPi forum for help.
Duh, what sort of reasoning is THAT?
Wired connections are ALWAYS better than wireless, so if you have that already you don’t need WiFi.
I missed that part. you are correct. Until yesterday, I had never connected my Pi 3 to Wi-Fi but used Ethernet. I am testing its Wi-Fi connectivity now for a completely different usage.
Sorry.
Users asking for assistance here tend to give little or no information so we are used to needing to guess. Many times they do not make the best decision.
Sometimes these discussions in communitites are frustating. I just ask for help configuring the external usb wifi stick. I did not ask wether ethernet or wifi is the more stable connection.
Bruce, what was the information I forgot to mention about my problem? I am new here and I don‘t want to upset anyone here, so if I made a mistake, please tell me.
My biggest fear was that I did not searched carefully enough and missed a solution that was already documented.
#8 i missed the goal? my goal was to configure an external usb wifi stick
#9 i showed less effort? I searched a lot of entries in this community before I made my first post. what is your suggestion to me that I should do before posting?
No. It was to run in a WiFi-only environment. => XY problem
Emphasis is on show. We don’t know what you did or do in front of your computer to solve the problem yourself. When you don’t tell it is reasonable to assume “very little” or “nothing”.
Way too many people are too lazy to even read the docs (or error messages) and post straight away and don’t think about (or worse even, realize but don’t care about) wasting reader’s (potentially willing responder’s) time.
This is a misunderstanding: I did not ignore error messages. And I did not try to make the openHABian image function. After I read the message I looked for a way to configure it manually. My source were the posts in this community.
As I did not find a solution I asked for it here. Maybe this is also interesting for someone else not only me and this would extend the good documentation.
And in addition to that: In the documentation of the setup procedure one can read: “If you own a RPi3, RPi3+, RPi4, a RPi0W, a Pine A64, or a compatible Wi-Fi dongle you can set up and use openHABian purely via Wi-Fi”. As I use an original WiPi - USB dongle I assumed that there is a chance that this stick might be “compatible”.
What can be misunderstood about that ? RPI2 ain’t listed, and there is no such thing as an “original” WiFi dongle (= made by the Raspberry foundation).
“Compatible” and “you can setup” refer to the RPi you use (model 2 in your case), not to “openHABian”.
Docs do not claim you can setup WiFi on all of these from within openHABian.
Your dongle probably is compatible, but you have to set it up on UNIX level yourself.
