If you need the RTL8852BE as a 5 GHz access point at 80 MHz on the vendor kernel
(6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx): in-kernel rtw89_8852be gave me a working AP only at 20 MHz.
Realtek's own driver (8852be.ko) does 80 MHz fine, but Armbian ships it only in the
5.10 branches, so I ported it to 6.1:
https://github.com/maciejpoczek-lab/rtl8852be-ap-rk3588
It's a small patch against linux-rockchip rk-5.10-rkr8 plus DKMS, modprobe and hostapd
settings. Tested on Orange Pi 5 Plus, Armbian 26.8.3 vendor kernel, hostapd 2.10, AP
mode only: channel 48 / 80 MHz, 12 min with a phone, 0 disconnects, ~487/321 Mb/s TCP.
Two things worth knowing even if you use lwfinger/rtw8852be instead:
- clients got rejected (assoc status 16) when the primary channel was 40; start on
48 with [HT40-] so hostapd's 20/40 scan can only swap to 44, never 40;
- kernel package upgrades wipe custom overlays in /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay/ —
move yours to /boot/overlay-user and use user_overlays= in armbianEnv.txt.
Provided as is, one board tested.