Sorry if this is slightly off topic, I searched for communities about tech support on here and couldn’t find anything that wasn’t dead in the water. Basically I want to use WPA3 on my Network, however my Windows partition doesn’t support WPA3 for some reason. I only keep that piece of trash around for school work. My Fedora Linux partition can use WPA3 just fine so I assume this is a driver issue. Is there any way to use Linux WiFi drivers on Windows?

(inb4 how the turntables)

  • Troy@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    It’s so ironic. Over the last few decades you could find millions of examples of the opposite question being asked.

  • Technoguyfication@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Update the drivers on windows and see if the latest version supports it

    Or

    Install WSL or a VM and pass the device through to linux, let the kernel find it and activate the drivers, configure the network, then set up routes to share that connection with the host.

  • ulkesh@beehaw.org
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    5 months ago

    As a workaround which does not solve your specific question, and assuming you have control over the WiFi network and the router would have to support it — set one network band on WPA3, and a different network band on WPA2. Then in Linux, connect to the WPA3 band and on windows connect to the WPA2 band.

    May I ask what school work requires the use of Windows? Adobe creative cloud or something?

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    I feel like this is a weird place to put this. However, since you asked, why can’t you run Windows in a VM?

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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    5 months ago

    If it’s a case of needing ad-hoc WiFi from Windows, an Android phone tethered over USB will act as a WiFi adapter of sorts.

      • Mountaineer@aussie.zone
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        5 months ago

        If you need to use windows because of a software issue, not a hardware issue, you’re probably best off running windows in a VM.
        That way your linux install is making the WPA3 connection, and as far as the Windows install is concerned, it’s on a wired lan.
        This has the added benefit of not having to reboot, you just always start linux and turn the windows VM on and off as required.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I see.

        There is no way to use wpa3 in windows with that wireless adapter.

        Some of the answers provided itt will work:

        running a vm hosted on windows with hardware passthrough and some simple operating system which does support wpa3 on that adapter bridged to your windows installation.

        Running windows in a vm for lockdown browser has worked for me in the past. Try it and see. I used qemu.

        Since you talked about it being your network and not some other person or institutions, you could always run two wireless networks, one supporting wpa3 and one supporting wpa2.

        I do that everywhere for 2.5/5g so older devices can still connect to the wireless. If youre worried about a wpa3 thing connecting to the wpa2 network you can set them up with different passwords.

        Is there a specific benefit of wpa3 you’re trying to get?

        E: you could use a sbc that supports wpa3 and has an Ethernet port as some kind of mutant firewall/gateway like you do when tethering your phone, but that’s kinda silly…

        E2: laptop or desktop? If laptop, what specific model? Often the wireless cards in laptops are replaceable and you could always put one in that has wpa3 in both Linux and windows.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Hey, post the model of your laptop and I’ll point you at a replacement wireless card that can do what you want.

  • wheresmysurplusvalue [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    I don’t know if this is possible or even advisable, but theoretically maybe the NIC could be hardware passed through to a linux VM, and then configure the host to use the guest VM as a gateway? It’d be kind of a nuts solution but it’d get points for creativity. Guest VM takes hardware control of the NIC and the host connects to the VM like it’s a separate device on the same network.

    Something like the question posed here

    You’d have to solve a few separate problems that might not be worth it, unfortunately I don’t have these answers:

    1. Hardware passthrough to the guest (does it require any special drivers on windows/is this idea already dead in the water?)
    2. How to configure VM networking properly so that the host can use the connection (is it enough to configure the connection as bridged?)
    3. Performance
    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      I don’t know if this is possible or even advisable, but theoretically maybe the NIC could be hardware passed through to a linux VM, and then configure the host to use the guest VM as a gateway?

      i don’t know about advisable, but i know it works because i do this.

      intel won’t allow you to get wifi 6 speeds in ap mode with their linux driver; so i created a windows vm with pci passthrough to use the windows driver to get wifi 6 speeds. it passes along the connection via dns & ip masquerade to the soft router (also a vm) via kvm/qemu based software defined networking; so technically the connections from my laptop & smartphones go through 2 different networks before making it to my isp.

      It’d be kind of a nuts solution but it’d get points for creativity. Guest VM takes hardware control of the NIC and the host connects to the VM like it’s a separate device on the same network.

      that’s how my software router works and i always thought of it as hacky; this is the first time i’ve heard/thought otherwise.

  • f00f/eris@startrek.website
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    5 months ago

    Unlikely. While in theory someone could create a compatibility layer, it would be quite a challenge, as obviously, kernel modules are very closely tied to the specific kernel. I did some web searches, and only found the same few dead projects (that didn’t completely solve this issue anyway) that you found, and other forum posts that offer little encouragement.

    Make sure you have the latest version of Windows 10 or 11, and the latest drivers for your network hardware. If you do, then there’s probably not much you can do about this.

  • Matt@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    It is possible if you crosscompile the drivers for Windows. But switch to Fedora, it’s not hard.