Cannot get TP-Link TL-WN725N wifi adapter to work

Creating a bug report/issue

I’m trying to use the TP Link TL-WN725N wireless adapter on a Libre SBC. Everything besides wireless seems to work fine, but wpa_supplicant fails with the error:

root@DietPi:~# wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0 -B
Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
nl80211: 'nl80211' generic netlink not found
Failed to initialize driver 'nl80211'

Here’s the output for ip l:

root@DietPi:~# ip l
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 32:97:74:b3:eb:95 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 54:af:97:74:fa:b1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
  • I’ve installed DietPi on a Libre AML-S905X-CC by following the instructions on the website (I used bullseye as a base image).
  • Using the wext driver does not work.
  • r8188eu shows as the active driver when I run lsusb -t.

EDIT
The cfg80211 module is present, but wasn’t activated. After running modprobe cfg80211 I get a different error message:

root@DietPi:~# wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0 -B
Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
nl80211: Driver does not support authentication/association or connect commands
nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0
wlan0: Failed to initialize driver interface

Required Information

  • DietPi version: 8.14
  • Distro version: bullseye
  • Kernel version: Linux DietPi 6.0.19-02543-g73f2949c2dd9 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Feb 14 05:59:27 UTC 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux
  • SBC model Generic Amlogic S905 (aarch64)
  • Power supply used Generic 5V
  • SD card used Sandisk Ultra

searching those error codes…I found this
linux - How to get the wifi working with r8188eu driver on my raspberry pi? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
wifi - nl80211: Driver does not support authentication/association or connect commands - Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange

Rpi is based upon Debian, Dietpi is based upon Debian…the only thing that might be different is the users