I’ve released an early beta. Focus in this release has been on supporting USB WiFi dongles. There were (again) some people reporting issues with various dongles, so I took some time to delve into that.
As I mentioned in the past, the situation on Linux with WiFi USB dongles is pretty poor: most (cheap) dongles come with a Realtek chipset, and Realtek is known for their * driver support. That means I need to add some badly supported drivers to RoPieee, which basically results in a ‘hit and miss’ kinda situation - and maybe more importantly: no guaruantees whatsoever from my side…
However, things are changing: there’s an effort going on to make Realtek chipsets properly supported in the Linux kernel, and there’s even some folks from Realtek themselves involved. Long story short: I’ve been playing around with this new driver a bit, and the results seem promising.
So with this RoPieee release I’m going to switch to that new driver: it’s the way forward and makes support from my side less cumbersome. It also increases the chance that a random dongle just ‘might work’ out of the box.
For the rest some minor improvements all over the place.
So here’s the changelog (up to now):
NEW: add support for InnoMaker Digi One
IMPROVEMENT: improve support for Realtek based WiFi dongles
IMPROVEMENT: [display] improve displaying long zone names
IMPROVEMENT: make device discovery more reliable
IMPROVEMENT: update Linux kernel
So go out and test.
And here’s a picture of my WiFi dongle ‘test set’:
I have updated my 6 RoPieee’s.
I have done tests with 2 different WiFi-dongles:
Realtek Edimax AC600 USB
Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter
They both are working correctly. The first one (Realtek Edimax AC600 USB) didn’t work on the Beta 2025.05, but now on Beta 2025.06 (2487), it is recognised and works correctly.
Thank you Harry for this update.
Three units updated two Rpi4s with no screen one RPi3b with Display 1 all are working fine.
I have some WiFi dongles floating around I will try to dig them out and see if they work. I have not used them in a while… so not guarantees, LOL
Two RPi4s are on RoPieee 2025.06 (2488) [BETA]. Kernel version: 6.12.30-SPCKFSH-v8+
One RPi3B is on RoPieee 2025.06 (2487) [BETA]. Kernel version: 6.12.30-SPCKFSH-v7+
Unit 1
Hardware : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5
Network : ethernet
Audio : USB Inmotion Air
Display : No
Remote : No
Temp: 51.6℃ / 124.8℉
Unit 2
Hardware : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5
Network : ethernet
Audio : USB to Schiit Fulla/UE boom 2
Display : No
Remote : No
Temp: 49.2℃ / 120.5℉
Unit 3
Hardware : Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2
Network : ethernet
Audio : Digi+ pro hat to SVS Prime Wireless Pro and Schiit Yggdrasil
I am exploring those pi5 pcie WiFi HAT and try some M2 E key WiFi 7 module such as Intel BE200.
May I know this need enhancement or direct support from ropieee?
Hi Harry, one of my endpoints running the beta lost connection in the middle of playing and paused. I loaded Roon on the PC and it saw the endpoint (in the pause state) but not the ropieee display extension. I hit play, and another 10 seconds or so later the extension reappeared and the display started working again. Could be related to today’s Roon update, could be related to the Beta, or could just be one of those random blips that happens rarely. No action required, just figured I’d mention it in case others in the beta notice similar things.
