JetPack 5.x Wifi drivers in kernel

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Xavier NX
1

Hello,

As we are “stuck” with kernel 5.10 for the time being and a custom recompile is hard to maintain, how can we get the most used wifi drivers included/backported?

In the previous JetPack we had those realtek drivers included in the nvidia-l4t-kernel package:

jetson@jetson:~$ ls /lib/modules/4.9.253-tegra/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/
rtl818x  rtl8812au  rtl8814au  rtl8821au  rtl8821cu  rtl8822bu  rtl8822ce  rtl8xxxu  rtlwifi

Now we only have those:

jetson@jetson:~$ ls /lib/modules/5.10.104-tegra/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/
rtl818x  rtl8822ce  rtl8xxxu  rtlwifi

More to this, we now want to use another (newer) Wifi 6E card, using the MediaTek mt7921u, which has the driver merged on mainline kernel 5.12 (USB support in 5.18 and AP mode in 5.19), so we need a backported version.

Looking online, I found that OpenWRT 22.03.x did that already for kernel 5.10, so should be rather easy to include into tegra-kernel, I see the version of mt76 driver included in JetPack is older.

How can we compile this as a module? I think this would benefit the whole community.

3

I have tried and to some extent succeeded to compile the driver on 5.10.

BUT: to contribute it back to the open source community and especially to L4T users, how should we do it?

Also, can we maybe include/use/integrate backports project? Documentation - Driver Backports Wiki

5

Hi,
Please check if you can share the steps and patches. We can add the link to Jetson Xavier NX FAQ so that other users can refer to it.

6

I’ve read that Jetpack 6 is upstreaming all the changes to mainline kernel. Does that mean we can use the latest kernel than (and have those drivers included)?

Or should I try to create patch files for current 5.10 kernel to make the driver work? The thing is, it needs changes to cfg80211 and mac80211, would this be acceptable?

7

Hi,
Jetpack 6 does not support Xavier series, so you would need to use Jetpack 5 and create the patch files for K5.10.

For using Orin series, can use Jetpack 6 release and follow the guidance in
Bring Your Own Kernel — NVIDIA Jetson Linux Developer Guide 1 documentation

8

ok, I see, so back to the Jetpack 5 and kernel 5.10, where can we contribute the patches or how can we get them available for everyone with the next 5.1.x release? Asking because we need to integrate the new cfg80211 and mac80211 modules as well… we can’t just put it on a FAQ.

Same question for the realtek drivers, how can we get them back in the new kernel like we had them on Jetpack 4.6?

Thank you!

1 Like
9

Hi,razvan,

Can you share your steps and patches somewhere online, I plan to use Wifi 6E MediaTek mt7912u.
And I’m using Jetson Orin NX module, kernel 5.10.104-tegra, But there are few references online.
As you said, this work is helping and meaningful.
Hope get your reply, regards.

11

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