aic8800-dkms — AIC8800 USB Wi-Fi driver for current kernels

DKMS packaging of the AICSemi AIC8800 vendor driver (RivieraWaves rwnx stack, v1.0.9) as shipped with BrosTrend USB Wi-Fi adapters, ported to build on current kernels (tested through kernel 7.1 / Fedora 44).

The vendor/BrosTrend driver only builds against older kernels; this tree adds version-guarded compatibility fixes so one source builds across old and new kernels.

Supported hardware

AIC8800-based USB adapters, e.g.:

• BrosTrend AIC8800DC — USB ID 2c4e:0126 (tested)
• Other AIC8800D80/DC-family dongles may work (firmware for both included)

Install (Fedora)

git clone https://github.com/bedlaj/aic8800-dkms
cd aic8800-dkms
sudo ./install.sh

The script installs dkms + kernel-devel if missing, copies firmware to /lib/firmware/, registers the source at /usr/src/aic8800-1.0.9, and builds/installs the modules (aic8800_fdrv, aic_load_fw) for the running kernel. DKMS rebuilds them automatically on future kernel updates.

Other distros: install dkms and your kernel headers manually, then run sudo ./install.sh.

Secure Boot

DKMS signs modules with a locally generated MOK key. If Secure Boot is enabled, enroll it once before the module will load:

sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub   # then reboot, enroll in MOK manager

Uninstall

sudo dkms remove aic8800/1.0.9 --all
sudo rm -rf /usr/src/aic8800-1.0.9 /lib/firmware/aic8800DC /lib/firmware/aic8800D80

Kernel compatibility / porting

Kernel API changes are handled with HIGH_KERNEL_VERSION* guards (see aic8800_fdrv/rwnx_defs.h). Most recently, HIGH_KERNEL_VERSION_WDEV (KERNEL_VERSION(7,1,0)) covers the kernel 7.1 cfg80211 changes: key/station cfg80211_ops callbacks take struct wireless_dev * instead of struct net_device *, and the action union in struct ieee80211_mgmt became anonymous with a shared action_code field.

dkms.service rebuilds the modules automatically when a new kernel is installed, as long as matching headers (kernel-devel) are present. To rebuild manually:

sudo dkms install aic8800/1.0.9 -k $(uname -r)

If a future kernel breaks the build:

1. Check journalctl -u dkms.service and /var/lib/dkms/aic8800/1.0.9/build/make.log for the compile error.
2. Compare against the new kernel's headers, e.g. /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)/include/net/cfg80211.h and include/linux/ieee80211.h.
3. Add a new branch guarded by a HIGH_KERNEL_VERSION* macro, keeping the older branches so one source still builds for every installed kernel — see git history for worked examples.

Upstream tracking

This tree is a fork of upstream 1.0.9 (see below), so upstream changes — including possible security fixes — must be ported by hand. A weekly GitHub Actions job (.github/workflows/upstream-check.yml) watches BrosTrend's driver repo (brostrend/linux.brostrend.com, which serves linux.brostrend.com): it pins the current release (versioned pool deb named by their aic8800-dkms.deb pointer file), their release commit, and per-file payload checksums in upstream/SHA256SUMS; if any of that changed, it opens an issue with the diff. Run ./check-upstream.sh locally for the same check, and ./check-upstream.sh --update to refresh the baseline after porting the changes.

Updating to a new upstream release

The vendor branch holds the pristine upstream source; main is vendor + our kernel-compat patches. When the upstream check reports a new release (say 1.0.10):

git checkout vendor
# extract the new deb's /usr/src/aic8800-<version> over the tree
curl -fsSL https://linux.brostrend.com/pool/main/a/aic8800/aic8800-dkms_<version>_all.deb -o /tmp/aic.deb
cd /tmp && ar x aic.deb && tar -xf data.tar.*
rsync -a --delete --exclude=.git --exclude=firmware --exclude={install.sh,README.md,LICENSE,check-upstream.sh,upstream,.github} \
    /tmp/usr/src/aic8800-<version>/ <repo>/
git commit -am "Vendor aic8800 <version>"
git checkout main && git merge vendor   # 3-way merge keeps our patches
./check-upstream.sh --update

Only hunks where upstream and our patches touch the same lines need manual conflict resolution.

A second weekly job (.github/workflows/fedora-build.yml) does a full dkms build in fedora:latest and fedora:rawhide containers against the newest kernel-devel headers, so a kernel API break is noticed — via an auto-filed issue with the make.log excerpt — before (rawhide) or as soon as (latest) it reaches users. It also runs on every push touching the driver source.

Licensing / attribution

• Driver source: GPL-2.0 (see LICENSE; MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") = GPLv2 or later in kernel terms), Copyright RivieraWaves / AICSemi; redistributed unmodified apart from kernel-compatibility fixes.
• firmware/: AICSemi firmware blobs (no explicit license), redistributed as-is for convenience.

Both driver source and firmware were obtained from BrosTrend's official Linux driver package aic8800-dkms 1.0.9 (linux.brostrend.com/aic8800-dkms.deb), maintained by BrosTrend at github.com/brostrend/linux.brostrend.com. The chipset, firmware, and vendor driver are developed by AICSemi (AIC Semiconductor).