Is there any usb AC wifi dongle supported by linux?

[JeremyB]

You can search for 8812au ubuntu on the internet and see how people like them. The biggest issue in Ubuntu is that the DKMS support is broken in the rtl8812au-dkms file. That is not an issue for most Linux Mint users as it only affects the module after a kernel update. I have posted the fix for this online and even in the bug report- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1613837 see comment #3

[Garabet]

You can search for 8812au ubuntu on the internet and see how people like them. The biggest issue in Ubuntu is that the DKMS support is broken in the rtl8812au-dkms file. That is not an issue for most Linux Mint users as it only affects the module after a kernel update. I have posted the fix for this online and even in the bug report- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1613837 see comment #3

What i don't understand is that why we, the people have to do their work and constantly try to fix their drivers for all the Kernel versions? I mean, this is the chipset makers and companies job. It`s not like there are only few of us. Millions of people are using Linux and i am sure there are so many people who faces with these driver issues.

The chipset makers like Mediatek or Realtek releases a mess of source code, only compatible with some old Kernels and then leave as it is forever! Then we the users who purchases their devices are also trying to fix their mess. This is their job and they have to give us proper drivers for all the Kernel versions and we have to be able to install these problem-free drivers with few mouse clicks, just like in Windows OS. We pay for their products and they have to show us a way to use these devices properly

[sebbo]

hey, thanks alot for your reply!!

I think you don't have an AC router if you see 10mbyte/sec. speed.

Oh, of course i run an 802.11AC accesspoint, but i just realize it can only do 867Mbit/s

http://www.zyxel.com/uk/en/news/press_r ... 7009.shtml

Altough i can't really recommend it, would rather spend 50€ more now and get some nwa3560n Access Points. I have them at work and it seems they are pretty nice.

Also, my NAS is very old, and even from the PC that is located right next to it (sharing the same Gigabit ethernet switch) i can merely get 25 Mbyte/s.

Important: my Thinkpad is a rather low-end one (running intel i3!) PLUS it is 5 years old! It does not have USB 3.0... so the most i can get is the 480Mbit/s of USB2.0 ..
last week i hoped i would get at least half of the 480 MBit/s

To check that the Problem is not my crappy "Prosumer" Accesspoint, i think i'll take my personal laptop with me to work next week and check with further AC routers/accesspoints if i can feel a difference.

HOwever, i realize i have two "radios" on. The one on 2.4Ghz can only do b/g/n, whereas the 5Ghz does b/g/n/ac

Not sure if i want to disable the 2.4... ( not taking the risk of annoying my Wife by cutting any of her old devices off the internet... ) anyway i think the 802.11AC usb dongle should use the 5ghz if its available...

This might be because of conflicts with your embedded Intel wifi. I suggest you to completely disable the Intel wifi when you use your new Edimax adapter. I have faced with similar issues while i was trying to make my Mediatek adapter to work in Linux. If i plug in my Atheros wifi device while i also had the Mediatek one, i saw strange freezes and kernel panic issues. These issues wasnt occuring if i dont use both wifi adapters at the same time.

All right, i tried to follow your advice.

If i use the Network Manager GUI from the system tray (what is the LInux name for this? ) it disables both WiFi Adapters

If i use rfkill command, it kills both adapters

If i disable the internal Intel Adapter right in the BIOS, it also kills both adapters... (at least they are shown as deactivated in the Network Manager GUI)

I tried to blacklist the iwlwifi driver by

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sebastian@sebastian-ThinkPad ~ $ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/blacklist.conf 
blacklist iwlwifi

Did not help...

Any hint what to do? I thought that there might be an easy way, also one which does not require to reboot would be nice...

I read about putting "inet wlan0 manual" into /etc/network/interfaces to stop the device from going into up-state on its own.

/etc/network/interfaces works fine on all my headless Singleboard-Computers (i run two Raspberries, a BananaPi and a OdroidC1 at home and a couple of more of these at work), but it seems that the /etc/network/interfaces on Desktop distributions is somehow "protected" and should not be tinkered around with when you run network manager...

It`s quite likely that this Edimax driver will cease to work if you upgrade your kernel. I suggest you to keep your current kernel but ofc you can upgrade the Kernel, install the driver again to check if it works. If not, then you can return to your old Kernel. But do not upgrade to Mint 18 as you would be destined to use Kernel v4.4 if you do that

There is one driver which should work with a more recent kernel.. i hope...


What i can try to do over the weekend is to download linux mint 18 over my crappy dsl line at home (will take some hours ) and run it as a live iso. I guess downloading and installing drivers should be possible, right?

However, i would still need to disable my integrated intel wifi card in order to make sure its not interfering...

Not sure whether i hope it is my crappy AP or whether i hope it is the driver... both a headache for me...

Thanks already for your help

And by the way...

What i don't understand is that why we, the people have to do their work and constantly try to fix their drivers for all the Kernel versions?

(... and more correct stuff...)

That is, what i think, one of the most important reason why Linux is not >10% for Desktop computers today... I have so many colleagues who are professional IT guys but stick to Windows because they fear Linux won't support their Graphic cards they need for their gaming or in fact they are not supported, i don't know because i dont play any games. It took a broken windows 7 installation and the "forced" win10 roll out to persuade me 20 months ago to switch to Linux! (I was lucky to bring at least a bit of command line experience from server linux we use at work (and at home), but i would not call myself a professionel linux system engineer or so)

br
sebastian

[JeremyB]

Hi sebbo, the correct way to blacklist is

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echo "blacklist iwlwifi" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Or you could just unload the module when you want with sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi as long as the original contents of /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf are intact.

I was able to try the EW-7833UAC with the module I built and the signal strength varies a lot on 5GHz

I found some settings that might help

It seems the preferred module for the 8812au is built from https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux

[sbosshardt]

I bought the EW-7833UAC adapter after coming across this thread about a week ago. I was able to compile a working rtl8814AU driver for both Linux Mint 17.3 and 18. It took some effort to get it to work right. The driver supplied by the manufacturer does not have an entry for the device's vendor id and product id combination.

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$ sudo lsusb
...
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 7392:a833 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd 
...

I wasn't able to download the driver from Edimax over https, so I decided to compare it to a search result I found on Github. diederikdehaas has a repository, so I did a diff between the manufacturer-provided driver and what he has. The diff wasn't too long, and none of the changes looked improper.

Looking in the file os_dep/linux/usb_intf.c, there is an entry for vendor id 7392 with product id A834, but there is no entry for A833. I'm not sure why the product id is missing from their driver, probably an oversight. I noticed there was a fork of diederikdehaas' repository (by paspro), and there is a commit which adds the missing entry.

While troubleshooting, I found it convenient to fork paspro's repository so I could make changes and test rebooting my desktop into Linux Mint 18 via live usb. At first I wasn't sure if I would be able to get the adapter to work on either LM 17.3 or 18. I've been holding off on upgrading to 18, though I was willing to consider doing so if the wifi adapter would only work with 18.

At first I was trying to not use DKMS, since the manufacturer instructions said to run "make" followed by "sudo make install". paspro had changed a path, which caused an error for me when running "sudo make install", so I made a commit to the makefile to fix the error. His work had focused on DKMS and a few general improvements. Based on the README.md instructions provided by paspro, I wrote shell scripts to handle the DKMS tasks. I later came to the conclusion to skip the manufacturer's make instructions and just do what paspro has in his README.md. After testing on a fresh Mint live usb environment, I got the shell scripts to the point where I could run the following commands to get the adapter to work:

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$ git clone https://github.com/sbosshardt/rtl8814AU.git
$ cd rtl8814AU
$ sudo ./dkms-install.sh

After the script finishes, I would plug in the wifi adapter and the adapter's indicator light would blink (it wouldn't blink before having a working driver). Network Manager will immediately recognize it and show nearby wifi networks when I click on the system tray icon. I connected to my 5G wireless access point (Netgear R8000), and when I right click the system tray icon and click "Connection Information", it shows the speed as 1300Mb/s.

Edit: Included link to (almost working) driver provided by manufacturer.

[Garabet]

Oh, of course i run an 802.11AC accesspoint, but i just realize it can only do 867Mbit/s

My router can only do 867mbit/s AC connection too and i saw a file transfer speed up to 40 Mbytes/s between my computers.

That is, what i think, one of the most important reason why Linux is not >10% for Desktop computers today... I have so many colleagues who are professional IT guys but stick to Windows because they fear Linux won't support their Graphic cards they need for their gaming or in fact they are not supported,

Gaming is whole another issue but it`s not because of Linux. Microsoft still holds a monopoly via their crappy DirectX api and Linux can/will be as good as Windows 10 when gaming industry breaks the Microsoft`s DirectX dogma by creating a proper multi-platform 3D graphics api

[Garabet]

I bought the EW-7833UAC adapter after coming across this thread about a week ago. I was able to compile a working rtl8814AU driver for both Linux Mint 17.3 and 18. It took some effort to get it to work right. The driver supplied by the manufacturer does not have an entry for the device's vendor id and product id combination.

This shows how much they care for Linux users. They don't even edit the file to include their own device`s IDs. Instead, they are just giving a link to the file they took from Realtek!

After the script finishes, I would plug in the wifi adapter and the adapter's indicator light would blink (it wouldn't blink before having a working driver). Network Manager will immediately recognize it and show nearby wifi networks when I click on the system tray icon. I connected to my 5G wireless access point (Netgear R8000), and when I right click the system tray icon and click "Connection Information", it shows the speed as 1300Mb/s.

Thanks for the work and telling us the result sbosshardt but use it for a while and tell us about the stability of the driver.

Do you get any sudden disconnections or instability with network manager?
How stable is the 5G connection signal? If you also have Windows OS, can you compare the signal strength values between two OSs?

Your answers are important to me because i recently bought a Mediatek MT7612U chipset device but i couldn't use it due to Linux driver issues. If you say that Realtek RTL8814AU chipset driver is stable, then i will buy that device myself. Probably some other people will decide which device to buy by looking our messages too

[sebbo]

Hi sebbo, the correct way to blacklist is

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist iwlwifi" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Or you could just unload the module when you want with sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi as long as the original contents of /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf are intact.

Yay. That helped.

It helped in a way that the Intel Centrino is completely disabled while the Edimax works...

It did not help with the connection Drop. No 2 minutes after boot up and connecting the Edimax the connection gets stuck until i unplug and replug the Usb Adapter

I found some settings that might help

It seems the preferred module for the 8812au is built from https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux

Thanks i will have a look, but i don't know when i can give feedback. Might take a few days... and i also need to make sure i send that damn thing back to Amazon in time to get my 48€ back, in case i can't get it to work properly

[sbosshardt]

Thanks for the work and telling us the result sbosshardt but use it for a while and tell us about the stability of the driver.

Sure, I can post back after I've had the adapter in use longer.

Do you get any sudden disconnections or instability with network manager?

The adapter hasn't disconnected once. So far, the stability is really good. My previous adapter was using the 8812au driver (EW-7811UTC), and had intermittent problems. Every once in a while, packets would be delayed for around 20 seconds, and signal strength would vary. When I'd work from home, I'd be disconnected from the work VPN around 5-10 times in a day. I had tried drivers from both abperiasamy and gnab. So from what I've seen, my new adapter is definitely working better.

With my new adapter, I ran a ping against my employer's web site for almost 24 hours before I terminated it. During this time the connection was in use for other various activities too. Packet loss is 0.0072% which may not even be the wifi connection's fault.

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83486 packets transmitted, 83480 received, 0% packet loss, time 83594777ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.523/67.236/2482.101/168.359 ms, pipe 3

How stable is the 5G connection signal? If you also have Windows OS, can you compare the signal strength values between two OSs?

I've checked many times and it's always shows 100% in Network Manager. My previous adapter would vary. I have Windows, but haven't booted into it for a couple of weeks. Maybe I'll try later this week and see if there is any difference in signal strength.

Also, it appears beam forming is working. I have two routers with wifi - one is an older 802.11n. They are in the same room, within 4 feet of each other. If I use the utility "wavemon" (installed via apt-get), readings the old router will vary between 50%-75% link quality. When I connect to my newer router, within the first 5 seconds of connecting, the quality climbs to 97%-99% and doesn't drop below 93%.

Probably some other people will decide which device to buy by looking our messages too

Agreed, Linux support is something I look for with every hardware purchase I make. Windows hardware support is ubiquitous; pretty much any hardware you buy for Linux will also have a Windows driver available.

The occasional hiccups were at times annoying, but not enough to seek a replacement. The reason I replaced my previous 8812au adapter (with 8814au) is because my friend broke it (he accidentally bent the adapter and it no longer works). I didn't want to buy the same card again, so I searched for 802.11ac cards that support Linux. I came across this thread, learned of the EW-7833UAC supporting Linux, saw there were instructions for installing on Ubuntu 16.04, and so I bought it.

Unfortunately, the instructions did not work due to the vendor/product id entry missing in the driver. While trying to get the card working, I came across another thread where a user couldn't get this card to work, and it's over 4 months ago. Edimax really should correct that problem. I'll post in that thread in case mprince93 is still having trouble.

[sbosshardt]

Clarification and apologies for mistaken information in my earlier posts:
I looked again and the driver provided by the manufacturer actually has the vendor/product id combination in the file. Either way, I spent a fair amount of time and effort trying to get the manufacturer provided driver to work (on LM 17.3 and 18) but was unable to. The drivers from Github did work well for me; the one by diederikdehaas is missing A833 and worked for me when added. paspro made commits so that A833 is in usb_intf.c (one commit changed A834 to A833, then he made another commit which added A834 back). If anyone else who has this adapter is unable to get the manufacturer driver to work, maybe downloading from Github will solve the problem as it did for me. Sorry for the confusion.

[Pjotr]

@sbosshardt: thanks for your efforts! I don't have such a chipset myself, but your solution looks as if it might help many people.

One question: it looks as if your driver was designed for the 4.3 kernel series. Does it work just as well on the 4.4 and 4.8 kernel series?

[sbosshardt]

One question: it looks as if your driver was designed for the 4.3 kernel series. Does it work just as well on the 4.4 and 4.8 kernel series?

It worked fine for me on Linux Mint 18 (kernel v4.4), but I didn't test it extensively; I tested from a live usb environment. I can't speak to kernel v4.8. I'm on Linux Mint 17.3, which is using kernel v3.19. I'm hoping to upgrade to Linux Mint 18 or 18.1 in the near future (after I back up my partitions).

[sebbo]

So i checked at work yesterday and when having my internal wifi blacklisted to not interfere the Edimax anyway has connection drops and instabilities. Even against a 802.11g Network.

I'm guessing the driver provided is not very good. I'm not sure whether i want to spend more time debugging this and trying the other driver(s?) mentioned in this thread or just send this thing back to Amazon and wait for next year when i'm eventually buying a new laptop after using this one for 5 years

[Garabet]

So i checked at work yesterday and when having my internal wifi blacklisted to not interfere the Edimax anyway has connection drops and instabilities. Even against a 802.11g Network.

I'm guessing the driver provided is not very good. I'm not sure whether i want to spend more time debugging this and trying the other driver(s?) mentioned in this thread

I have recently came across a working account for the Realtek`s own ftp server to get RTL8812AU drivers for Linux. Realtek does not give these drivers from their website for some reason.

The latest driver is v5.5.1.19247, dated 30th August 2016. There are older versions of the driver too. You may want to try these;

ftp://ftp3.realtek.com.tw/

Username : RTL8812A
Password : J2e8Fg

P.S: I think this account have permission to see only the RTL8812A drivers in their ftp server. Unfortunately i couldn't see any drivers for RTL8814A.

[sebbo]

I have recently came across a working account for the Realtek`s own ftp server to get RTL8812AU drivers for Linux. Realtek does not give these drivers from their website for some reason.
(...)

Aww, thanks for your reply!

But i actually just checked back into this thread to report that i decided to send this thing back and save the almost 50€ for a new notebook next year maybe. Don't have the time right now for further troubleshooting... Sorry for the others and thanks to those who tried to help!

[Garabet]

But i actually just checked back into this thread to report that i decided to send this thing back and save the almost 50€ for a new notebook next year maybe.

Your new laptop most likely include one of these new AC chipsets and I hope we will have a new kernel version which includes firmwares/drivers in it by then

[UnixSlayer]

Next to the Cisco/Linksys AE1000 adapter which worked in Linux Mint 18.1 as soon as i plugged it in.... The Edimax AC1750 wireless adapter was just as easy to install. the accompanied Linux drivers on the supplied CD worked perfect. I copied the Linux drivers to my drive, and did a "make", and a "make install"... and it connected right away at 1300 MB/s. And the uploads, and downloads really fast.

EW-7833UAC_02_right_1000x1000.jpg

[l0co]

I've spent almost 6 months struggling with rtl8812au device and finally found a better solution which is independent from the chipset and kernel modules compatibility. If you don't have to connect using USB, but LAN is an option, and you don't want to struggle with anything, just use WiFi extender device which connects to your 5 GHz WiFi network around and exposes this connection on cable LAN port. I've described one of such devices with benchmarks here.

[I2k4]

Further on my earlier comment, this has become more aggravating since Bell Canada has nicely bumped my 25/25mb fibre subscription to 300/300 at no extra cost - I confirmed over ethernet but am still stuck with 2.4gHz 11n on wifi that only improves speed to 50/50 or so. (I was getting 35mb on the old plan anyway.) So I'm shopping for two 11ac USB adapters again.

That Edimax looks interesting but C$100 x 2 machines at Amazon.ca just to take a chance. I'd be interested in any experience with Edimax EW-7822ULC Wi-Fi USB Adapter, AC1200-Nano, Black/Silver which is only C$35 - but Supports Windows 7/8.x/10 and Mac OS 10.7 up to 10.11 with workaround for 10.12, Linux platform under development and there is a recent Manufacturer response to a question about Linux support at the Amazon US site, confirming the driver is not there yet.

https://goo.gl/ttoHn5

I assume they're really working on it since the expensive model has one. Would appreciate hearing if/when a Mint driver is available and works.