Is Rocky unable to see 5Ghz networks - or just not able to work with older systems?

I’m using either the Techkey 1200 AC, or Panda PAU 09 USB adapters on my Xfinity system - but said adapters are only able to see 2.4 Ghz network - not the 5 Ghz network.

On the 2.4 Ghz network, it is only supporting traffic of 14Mbps. But when I use the same adapters on Windows systems, the same distance away from the gateway, I’m easily reach inbound speeds of over 100Mbps - so I don’t think that it is the adapters.

Also, switching to Ethernet improves the speed considerably, with speeds exceeding 400Mbps inbound.

The driver that I picked up from Techkey site doesn’t have a way to install it (the “makefile” that they reference in their user guide isn’t part of zip file that they provided) - and the Panda website doesn’t have a Linux driver for the PAU 09).

Currently I’m unsure on how to proceed here, as checking online (YouTube, and other reference sites) either don’t seem to have much information on installing drivers for Rocky - or only reference installing upon Debian systems…

While I really would like to build some skillset regarding Linux, every step to get this OS to basic operational status seems to be an uphill battle, while slogging through a tar-pit.

System is an HP Envy system, I5 CPU, 16GB Ram, 1TB HD.
Kernel version: 5.14.0-162.12.1.el9_1.0.2.x86_64
USB Adapter: Techkey (1200Mbps), or Panda PAU 09 N600 (1200Mbps)
Driver:
For the Techkey: rtl88x2BU_WiFi_linux_v5.2.4.4_25643.20171212_COEX20171012-5044
For the Panda PAU 09: there wasn’t one available on the vendor’s site.

Sites referenced:
Products | Panda Wireless
Drivers | Panda Wireless
https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/usb-wifi-adapter-linux/

Panda PAU09 - Ralink RT5572

Support is built-in, checked the following kernel config:
✓ CONFIG_RT2800USB=m
✓ CONFIG_RT2X00=m
✓ CONFIG_WLAN=y

Techkey 1200 AC - Realtek RTL8812BU

@toracat, I see that there used to be a kmod-rtl8812au package in ELRepo, is it no longer necessary? The PCI driver is built in, but there’s no in-tree USB driver yet according to the Gentoo wiki. Looks like aircrack is maintaining a fork with nice features GitHub - aircrack-ng/rtl8812au: RTL8812AU/21AU and RTL8814AU driver with monitor mode and frame injection. Alfa has a guide at Linux support for RTL8812BU based products - ALFA Network Docs

Your best bet is probably to reach out to their support email: support@pandawireless.com

Just a hunch, the spec page for Panda PAU09 says the device supports 802.11ac/b/g/n at 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. If your wifi access point has wifi ac enabled, but not wifi n, that might explain why it doesn’t show up. It would be pretty strange for your xfinity wifi to have been configured this way though.

There is a kmod-rtl8812au package for EL7 because there was a request for it. It is indeed based on the code from GitHub - aircrack-ng/rtl8812au: RTL8812AU/21AU and RTL8814AU driver with monitor mode and frame injection. However the kmod package was last updated in 2020. And no request has been made for EL8 or 9 so far.

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Yeah - I’ve contacted both. The Panda Team just responded, requesting output from these commands:

“hostnamectl”.
“lsusb”,
“ifconfig”,
“ip a”,
“iwconfig”,
and “nmcli dev status” information.

I was able to obtain everything except the iwconfig information, as the shell didn’t seem to recognize it:

[root@XXXXXXX ~]# iwconfig
bash: iwconfig: command not found…

This is odd, as the card operated just fine during the installation process (as in, it was recognized, and retrieving wireless information well enough that I didn’t suspect any issues with it at the time - but after reboot, the extreme latency manifested).

During the installation, there were so many issues being experienced, that I suspected that I kept obtaining corrupted installations - even though they passed the SHA-256 check. So many issues were experienced, that I had to re-install six times.

Is it expected behavior for the iwconfig command to not be seen - has it been deprecated for Rocky 9? If that command should be installed, how would I fix that, as DNF and YUM weren’t able to obtain the command package from my repositories…

[root@XXXXXXXX ~]# yum whatprovides iwconfig
Last metadata expiration check: 0:22:25 ago on Sat 04 Mar 2023 05:50:28 AM PST.
Error: No matches found. If searching for a file, try specifying the full path or using a wildcard prefix (“*/”) at the beginning.
[root@XXXXXXXX ~]#

[XXXXX@XXXXX ~]$ yum whatprovides iwconfig
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 - Testing - x86_6 649 kB/s | 1.0 MB 00:01
Rocky Linux 9 - Realtime 577 kB/s | 954 kB 00:01
Rocky Linux 9 - Plus 6.6 kB/s | 4.5 kB 00:00
Error: No matches found. If searching for a file, try specifying the full path or using a wildcard prefix (“*/”) at the beginning.
[XXXXX@XXXXX ~]$

rpm -q --whatprovides /usr/sbin/iwconfig
wireless-tools-29-27.el8.x86_64

This is (obvously) on el8 but I don’t see why the rpm name would be changed on el9.

Nothing show when I try that command:

[XXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXX ~]$ sudo rpm -q --whatprovides /usr/sbin/iwconfig
error: file /usr/sbin/iwconfig: No such file or directory
[XXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXX ~]$

dnf install wireless-tools

See what happens if you do that.

iwconfig is deprecated in RL9, usage is now with iw. Usually for packages that are not installed, you would use:

dnf provides *bin/iwconfig

or:

dnf whatprovides iwconfig

and that will find the package that you need to install. Obviously, since this doesn’t exist in RL9 it won’t give results, so an example using both those commands:

[root@rocky9 ~]# dnf whatprovides iw
Last metadata expiration check: 2:20:05 ago on Sun 05 Mar 2023 08:28:01 AM CET.
iw-5.9-4.el9.x86_64 : A nl80211 based wireless configuration tool
Repo        : @System
Matched from:
Provide    : iw = 5.9-4.el9

iw-5.9-4.el9.x86_64 : A nl80211 based wireless configuration tool
Repo        : baseos
Matched from:
Provide    : iw = 5.9-4.el9

and:

[root@rocky9 ~]# dnf provides *bin/iw
Last metadata expiration check: 2:20:14 ago on Sun 05 Mar 2023 08:28:01 AM CET.
iw-5.9-4.el9.x86_64 : A nl80211 based wireless configuration tool
Repo        : @System
Matched from:
Other       : *bin/iw

iw-5.9-4.el9.x86_64 : A nl80211 based wireless configuration tool
Repo        : baseos
Matched from:
Other       : *bin/iw

The rpm command only works if the packages are already installed.

[XXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXX ~]$ sudo dnf install wireless-tools
[sudo] password for XXXXXXXX:
Last metadata expiration check: 2:55:42 ago on Mon 06 Mar 2023 02:55:15 PM PST.
No match for argument: wireless-tools
Error: Unable to find a match: wireless-tools
[XXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXX ~]$

Sorry - I’m new here, so I’m not making much sense of what you’re stating. Is this to say that I’m out of luck with these adapters?

Also, has anyone experienced an easier time for wireless with Alma?

You are likely to get the same experience regardless of which Enterprise Linux you choose.

Figured that to be the case - but I hoped for something different with this issue…