Install USB Wifi Dongle Realtek 8188 Driver on Raspbery Pi 2

Regardless of the dongle manufacturer, any wifi dongle that uses Realtek 8188 chip is known to be fast and reliable. However Raspbian does not have a native support out-of-the-box. We need to manually install the driver before we can use it.

Update your Rasbpian:

sudo apt-get update

(Optional) If you feel that it is too old, then upgrade your distro:

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Check the kernel version you are in. To check:

uname -a

It will show something like: 3.18.7-v7+ #755

Please note that the file to be downloaded depends on your the kernel version. Please search for it accordingly. Refer to the following discussion for complete list: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=462982

Get an internet connection with existing wifi dongle or ethernet cable and follow the following steps:

For Example, my Pi2 is running 3.18.7-v7+ #755, so the correct file according to the forum is: 8188eu-v7-20150212.tar.gz

wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80256631/8188eu-v7-20150212.tar.gz (replace this with the correct file version)

tar xzf

./install.sh

Plug in your USB dongle, then reboot:

sudo reboot

If successful, you should be able to see your wlan0 or wlan1 using ifconfig -a command.

Unplug the other wifi / ethernet cable. Configure the new wifi, you will have faster connection now.

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