I am having trouble using the realtek wifi chip in my new tp-link usb wifi dongle. Upon plugging it, the device gets registered by the kernel (in /var/log/messages), but that's about it, no network device is being created (iwconfig does not see it, nothing else works).
A few google searches later I found out that this realtek chip is not supported by the kernel and requires a driver, and that the driver is packaged for C7 as kmod-8188eu in elrepo.
However, yum install kmod-8188eu refuses to install it (full yum output is here: https://pastebin.com/raw/vvak6FCU ), complaining that the following dependencies cannot be met:
--> Processing Dependency: kernel(wireless_send_event) = 0xa02e7e03 for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_submit_urb) = 0x74c6ac58 for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_reset_device) = 0xddd0084e for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_put_dev) = 0xf709107c for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_kill_urb) = 0xa55bf715 for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_get_dev) = 0x372a41af for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_free_urb) = 0x739aecf4 for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_control_msg) = 0xd04e3a9e for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64 --> Processing Dependency: kernel(usb_alloc_urb) = 0x12a4948e for package: kmod-8188eu-4.1.4_6773.20130222-4.el7_5.elrepo.x86_64
I've never seen such output from yum before --- I'm guessing it is asking for a kernel with specific "properties", and failing to find one.
What is the best way to resolve this? Is there some kernel package somewhere that matches these properties, or is there some other package that provides these features to an existing kernel, or something else?
Or should I just ditch the kmod, and compile the 8188eu driver from source? I'd prefer to avoid this if possible, since I am not a fan of recompiling it every time the kernel is updated in C7. And I might need to use the wifi dongle on multiple machines, anyway.
I'd appreciate any suggestions!
TIA, :-) Marko