Beagle Bone WiFi not detected - fails dmesg step

[ideal_knee]

I know there are about 15 threads on WiFi issues, but none seem to resolve the situation that I am having...

I have a rev A6 BeagleBone with the stock Angstrom image, powered by a 5V, 2A power supply. I am trying to follow the tutorial (http://learn.adafruit.com/beaglebone/wifi) using a slightly different adapter (http://adafruit.com/products/1030), which I understand to be the same chipset, but with a bigger antenna. Plugging this WiFi adapter into an Ubuntu machine shows that it identifies it as having rtl8192cu according to dmesg.

I have run:

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opkg update
mkdir /home/root/tmp
opkg -t /home/root/tmp upgrade

...according to the tutorial. When I run:

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opkg list 'linux-firmware-rt*'

...I get slightly different output:

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root@beaglebone:~# opkg list 'linux-firmware-rt*'
linux-firmware-rtl8192ce - 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1 - linux-firmware version 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1
Firmware files for use with Linux kernel
linux-firmware-rtl8192cu - 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1 - linux-firmware version 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1
Firmware files for use with Linux kernel
linux-firmware-rtl8192su - 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1 - linux-firmware version 0.0+git1+15888a2eab052ac3d3f49334e4f6f05f347a516e-r1
Firmware files for use with Linux kernel

...Could this be the issue? I continued anyway, plugging the adapter in and rebooting, however I never see the expected output from dmesg. It does seem to identify the device:

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[    0.734985] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8176
[    0.735015] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[    0.735015] usb 1-1: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[    0.735046] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Realtek
[    0.735046] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001

...but never any mention of rtl8192cu. Based on other threads, I have tried rerunning the opkg update and upgrade commands and rebooting without Ethernet attached, but the results are the same.

Please let me know anything I should try or additional information I can provide that would be useful. Thanks in advance!

[ideal_knee]

Full dmesg output attached, FWIW.

dmesg.txt

(18.08 KiB) Downloaded 28 times

[ecbuehler]

I think that I have the same hardware and angstrom distro you are using, and the same wifi usb key.

While I haven't gotten it working yet, I've made a small amount of progress by plugging the wifi adapter into a 6' USB extension cord, which is then plugged into the board. If I don't use the extension cord, the light on the USB wifi never lights up. If I use it, the light on the USB does light up. Still troubleshooting why this doesn't translate into a wifi connection for me.

Please let us know if you get it working and how. Good luck!