WiFi on a Raspberry Pi 2 - not an option on newer releases

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I installed the latest RPI release 2020.11-1 and when I go to set up WiFi, the option isn’t there. If I install 2018.07-1 there’s no issue setting up WiFi and it runs fine.

I discovered that if I upgrade the 2018.07-1 release I lose the WiFi option. Restoring the config from a backup didn’t help either. I tried an intermediate release, 2019.11-1, and it also doesn’t give me the option to set up WiFi.

This is really strange that we lost something between 2018.07-1 and 2019.11-1.

Any ideas how to use a new OSMC version and give me the option of WiFI?

Here’s what dmesg says about my USB WLAN adapter:
[ 2.951553] usb 1-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using dwc_otg
[ 3.083092] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8176
[ 3.083111] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 3.083121] usb 1-1.4: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[ 3.083129] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: Realtek
[ 3.083135] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001

2

Unfortunately, support for some Realtek WiFi adapters was removed at the end of 2019.

3

Thanks. Good to have an answer at least!