Driver for the Allwinner XRadio XR819 wifi chip

This is an experimental wifi driver for the XRADIO XR819 wifi chip - as used in Single Board Computers (SBCs) such as the Orange Pi Zero or the Nanopi Duo, and TV-boxes like the the Sunvell R69.

Tested kernel versions: 4.14 - 5.6

STA-Mode (standard client station) and AP-Mode (device as access point) using WPA2 work. Hidden and open APs as well as WEP- or WPA1-encrypted connection are not supported. P2P has not been tested.

Firmware and dts-files

Get firmware binaries from somewhere, e.g. https://github.com/karabek/xradio/tree/master/firmware (boot_xr819.bin, fw_xr819.bin, sdd_xr819.bin) and place into your firmware folder (e.g. /lib/firmware/xr819/)

Example device tree files (for kernel version 5.5) can be found here: https://github.com/karabek/xradio/blob/master/dts/.

Building on a host system

Cross-compilations allows building a complete linux system with custom drivers on a suitable host system (e.g. your PC).

Building with armbian

The armbian project (https://www.armbian.com/) provides an ideal build environment for building linux on arm based devices: https://github.com/armbian/build Armbian has built-in xradio-support.

Building on any host system

To cross-compile and build the kernel module yourself on a host system get a suitable toolchain and try something like this:

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- -C <PATH TO YOUR LINUX SRC> M=$PWD modules
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- -C <PATH TO YOUR LINUX SRC> M=$PWD INSTALL_MOD_PATH=<PATH TO INSTALL MODULE> modules_install

For info on Toolchains see http://linux-sunxi.org/Toolchain.

Building an "out-of-tree" driver on the device

Kernel headers have to be installed for building kernel modules on a device. Make sure that the xradio-chip is supported by the device tree.

Option 1: the quick way

Clone the driver code directly on the device and use the provided script to compile and install the driver.

git clone https://github.com/karabek/xradio.git
cd xradio
sudo ./xr-install.sh

Reboot the device.

sudo reboot

Option 2: step-by-step

First clone driver code:

git clone https://github.com/karabek/xradio.git
cd xradio

Uncomment line 4 and 5 of Makefile:

	CONFIG_WLAN_VENDOR_XRADIO := m
	ccflags-y += -DCONFIG_XRADIO_USE_EXTENSIONS
	# ccflags-y += -DCONFIG_XRADIO_WAPI_SUPPORT

Compile the kernel module:

make  -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$PWD modules
ll *.ko

You should see the compiled module (xradio_wlan.ko) in your source directory. Now copy the module to the correct driver directory and make module dependencies available:

mkdir /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/xradio
cp xradio_wlan.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/xradio/
depmod

Finally reboot the device.

sudo reboot

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