ath9k_htc (Atheros) TL-WN722N WiFi dongle on Angstrom

Question

I am trying to interface the TL-WN722N to a Altera Cyclone SoC. I have taken the following approach:

1. Downloaded the open firmware ath9k_htc and try integrating it to my linux kernel image to be loaded.
   a. https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k_htc/open_firmware: The steps here mention to build the toolchain and the firmware and then place it in /lib/firmware.

   b. Built the linux kernel using the steps mentioned here : https://rocketboards.org/foswiki/Documentation/GSRDCompilingLinux

   The firmware obtained in step a. was placed into /linux-socfpga/firmware , since there was no firmware folder in directory /lib/.

   c. The image created was flashed and the wifi dongle was plugged in.

2.Here is a dmesg output for the cyclone board :

 [   2.223039] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0cf3, idProduct=9271
 [    2.229735] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48
 [    2.237129] usb 1-1: Product: USB2.0 WLAN
 [    2.241124] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ATHEROS
 [    2.245215] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 12345
 [    5.351145] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): recovery complete
 [    5.359958] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
 [    5.368058] VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) on device 179:2.
 [    5.375560] devtmpfs: mounted
 [    5.379310] Freeing unused kernel memory: 1024K (c0900000 - c0a00000)
 **[    5.670820] systemd[1]: Failed to insert module 'autofs4': No such file or directory**
 [    5.722709] systemd[1]: systemd 226 running in system mode. (+PAM -AUDIT -SELINUX +IMA -APPARMOR +SMACK +SYSVINIT +UTMP -LIBCRYPTSETUP -GCRYPT +GNUTLS +ACL +XZ -LZ4 -SECCOMP +BLKID -ELFUTILS +KMOD +IDN)

The linux is able to identify the Atheros usb device. However the driver module is not loaded. I have verified this using lsmod and it returns nothing. The commands ifconfig and ip a also returns no wireless connection.

Also when I see the path /lib/modules/.../kernel/drivers/net I observe only 2 modules ethernet and mdio.ko

Kernel version : 4.1.33-ltsi-altera

Does that mean that my driver is missing in the image? What could be the possible reasons for this issue? Does anyone have any other solution to this issue?

Edit:

• I could find the linux drivers in /sys/bus/usb/drivers/ath9k_htc and the corresponding modules in /sys/module/ath9k_htc
• So basically, the modules are configured static.
• Now when I boot up the system, I find an error saying that the requested firmware is not found.
• I have already placed the required firmware(htc_9271-1.4.0.fw & htc_9271.fw) in /lib/firmware/ath9k_htc

Here is the error :

[    2.002205] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using dwc2
[    2.262666] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0cf3, idProduct=9271
[    2.269348] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48
[    2.276730] usb 1-1: Product: USB2.0 WLAN
[    2.280724] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ATHEROS
[    2.284815] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 12345
[    2.289370] usb 1-1: ath9k_htc: Firmware ath9k_htc/htc_9271-1.4.0.fw requested
[    2.297203] usb 1-1: Direct firmware load for ath9k_htc/htc_9271-1.4.0.fw failed with error -2
[    2.305811] usb 1-1: ath9k_htc: Firmware htc_9271.fw requested
[    2.311658] usb 1-1: Direct firmware load for htc_9271.fw failed with error -2
[    2.318867] usb 1-1: no suitable firmware found!
[    2.323478] usb 1-1: ath9k_htc: Failed to get firmware htc_9271.fw
[    2.329951] usb 1-1: ath9k_htc: USB layer deinitialized

• I have also followed the steps mentioned here : https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/21903/custom-kernel-fails-to-load-firmware-when-module-built-in which explains how to provide configuration for the path for loading the firmware.

• A quick grep for /proc/config.gz reveals this:

  $zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_ATH
  CONFIG_ATH_COMMON=y
   #CONFIG_ATH_DEBUG is not set
   #CONFIG_ATH5K is not set
   #CONFIG_ATH5K_PCI is not set
  CONFIG_ATH9K_HW=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_COMMON=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_BTCOEX_SUPPORT=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_PCI=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_AHB=y
   #CONFIG_ATH9K_DEBUGFS is not set
   #CONFIG_ATH9K_DYNACK is not set
  CONFIG_ATH9K_WOW=y
   #CONFIG_ATH9K_CHANNEL_CONTEXT is not set
  CONFIG_ATH9K_PCOEM=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_HTC=y
  CONFIG_ATH9K_HTC_DEBUGFS=y
   #CONFIG_ATH6KL is not set
   #CONFIG_ATH10K is not set
  
  $zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_EXT
  CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE="htc_9271-1.4.0.fw"
  CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR="/lib/firmware/ath9k_htc"
   #CONFIG_EXTCON is not set
  
  zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_FIRMW
  CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y
  # CONFIG_FIRMWARE_MEMMAP is not set
  

Is there any other way to notify the kernel to load the firmware? I think I might be missing out some configuration.

Edit 2 :

I resolved the issue of firmware load failure by enabling the option Fallback user-help invocation for firmware loading. Now the device is initialised, but the driver seems to not support the device. Here is the dmesg log :

[   14.568484] usb 1-1: ath9k_htc: Transferred FW: ath9k_htc/htc_9271-1.4.0.fw, size: 51008
[   14.820407] ath9k_htc 1-1:1.0: ath9k_htc: HTC initialized with 33 credits
[   15.852173] ath: phy0: Mac Chip Rev 0x0f.3 is not supported by this driver
[   15.859064] ath: phy0: Unable to initialize hardware; initialization status: -95
[   15.866512] ath: phy0: Unable to initialize hardware; initialization status: -95
[   15.873973] ath9k_htc: Failed to initialize the device

A quick research on the device, I found that the official website of TP-Link states that the linux drivers are available for version 2, and not for version 1. My device is a version 1 device and I think because of this the driver does not support.