Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Contempt Culture

I recently found an essay (?) about "contempt culture" in the technological world:

https://blog.aurynn.com/2015/12/16-contempt-culture

I realize that I am 100% guilty of having a bad attitude towards those who use software that I consider inferior.  -  Like the author I hadn't thought about the social consequences.
 I'm still an advocate for software freedom.  It's good to encourage others to choose libre software.  I'll just have to check myself and make sure to not be contemptuous of others software choices. 

As a start on my path of technological inclusion I promise to never again make fun of Java programmers, KDE libraries, or Windows users...   


Monday, February 04, 2019

Easy WiFi driver instalation on Raspberry Pi

I really don't know why I decided to buy a WiFi adapter that didn't have support already built into Rasbian (Stretch).  But I did.  I picked up a EDUP 600mbps with removable antenna.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CCMUN8C/
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAEJS6X41720

It was cheap, and it was "Amazon's Choice" - So I suppose someone is making a little extra profit...

I don't necessarily hate or love these RealTek chips.  I haven't formed very strong opinions about WiFi chips.  I've bought a ton of the Edimax EW-7811Un USB WiFI adapter things.  They are small, cheap, and they just work every time.  But they are only 'N' WiFi at 150mbps.  New 'AC' WiFi adapters can hit gigabit speeds supposidly.  So I suppose I really just wanted to start looking for a new favorite.

Anyway,  I tried to compile a kernel with a rtl8812au driver...   but that was difficult.  Then I found MrEngman!

http://downloads.fars-robotics.net/

sudo wget http://fars-robotics.net/install-wifi -O /usr/bin/install-wifi
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/install-wifi 
sudo install-wifi -h

What a life saver!  Thank you MrEngman and everyone who worked to make my life easier.  You are all heros in my book for writing such a usefull and well written script to install WiFi drivers on Raspberry Pi's.

Seriously made my day, cheers to you!

PS: Their script works with MANY different RealTek chips.