D-Link DWA-181A1 USB Wireless NIC

[geekymalcolm]

Hello All:

I'm running (well was running) Mint Linux on a Toshiba Tecra R840 with an older Wi-Fi card in it. I went out last night & bought a D-Link AC1300 USB Wi-Fi card, model DWA-181A1. I couldn't seem to get it install but being something of a newb to Linux, assumed the issue was me. But some further reading led me to think maybe the chipset isn't supported.

Has anyone been able to get this USB Wi-Fi card to work or am I stuck running Windows 10 on the laptop?

Thx!

M

[HAWR]

Hello geekymalcolm,

information for your new wifi card are rarely found. I only found this website with little informations:

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/D-Link_DWA-181_rev_A1

Can you open the terminal with the new USB card plugged-in and run

Code: Select all

lsusb

and show the output here. What is the problem with your older card, that you have bought a new USB one? If you want, you can show the output of

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

so that we can see among other things the information of that older card.

[geekymalcolm]

Output from lsusb

gm@XXX:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0cf3:3005 Atheros Communications, Inc. AR3011 Bluetooth
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 2001:331e D-Link Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04f2:b1d6 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd CNF9055 Toshiba Webcam
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c03d Logitech, Inc. M-BT96a Pilot Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 08ff:168b AuthenTec, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

On-board NIC won't support 5GHz.

gm@XXX:~$ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: BURN03 Kernel: 4.15.0-54-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.2.4
Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Machine: Type: Laptop System: TOSHIBA product: TECRA R840 v: PT42FC-017003 serial: <filter>
Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Portable PC v: Version A0 serial: <filter> BIOS: TOSHIBA v: Version 4.10 date: 01/08/2013
Battery: ID-1: BAT1 charge: 51.9 Wh condition: 51.9/65.7 Wh (79%) model: G71C000BE710 status: Full
CPU: Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-2520M bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Sandy Bridge rev: 7 L2 cache: 3072 KiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19954
Speed: 1297 MHz min/max: 800/3200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1338 2: 798 3: 799 4: 798
Graphics: Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics vendor: Toshiba America Info Systems
driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile v: 3.3 Mesa 19.0.8 direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio vendor: Toshiba America Info Systems
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-54-generic
Network: Device-1: Intel 82579V Gigabit Network vendor: Toshiba America Info Systems driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: 3060
bus ID: 00:19.0
IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lite-On driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 3040
bus ID: 04:00.0
IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Device-3: Atheros AR3011 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 2-1.6:4
Drives: Local Storage: total: 235.94 GiB used: 13.62 GiB (5.8%)
ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 model: 5MKJR size: 116.70 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: THNSNC128GMLJ size: 119.24 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 115.22 GiB used: 6.69 GiB (5.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
ID-2: /boot size: 703.5 MiB used: 150.3 MiB (21.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-3: swap-1 size: 979.5 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-3
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 58.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 227 Uptime: 2h 43m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 1.23 GiB (7.9%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers:
gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 inxi: 3.0.32

[HAWR]

Hello geekymalcolm,

I've have searched in databases for the ID 2001:331e but have nothing found (the 2001 indicates it is D-Link, but nowhere the 331e is listed). So I think, there are two possibilitys:

1. In the wikidevi-link above there is mentioned a possible realtek driver RTL8812BU, but the author wrote, he knows no driver for your device. You can try, if RTL8812BU works and that would be fine. Here is a how-to to install the driver:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php ... st13776566

2. Maybe you can bring/give the D-Link adapter back or exchange it for another one. I'm not really firm with USB wifi adapters, because I never needed one until now. I know, that here in the forums are threads, where functionial wifi adapters are recommended, but unfortunately I don't find them now. But there is the question, why you need one, because your Atheros card is up (seems to work). So, what are the reason to go for a new USB adapter?

Ah, a hidden message:

On-board NIC won't support 5GHz.

then I know your reason

[geekomatic]

From an amazon review:

Bought this for a Thinkpad running Ubuntu 20.04. I *was* able to get it to work, but not using the supplied "drivers" which are incompatible with kernels from the last few years. To make this easier for others, there's a PPA (a Ubuntu software repository) with recent Realtek driver builds that you can add using:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelebek333/kablosuz

And the driver you want can be added using:

sudo apt-get install rtl8822bu-dkms

Followed by:

sudo modprobe 88x2bu

If this works for you, you need to add it to /etc/modules so Linux loads the driver on boot, using:

echo 88x2bu | sudo tee /etc/modules

This works in early 2022, probably won't in 2023 because... urgh. Linux Wi-Fi right? But if this is going to be advertised as Linux compatible, D-Link really needs to maintain a current driver themselves. Right now their "solution" is to provide a zip file containing a tarball of source code and absolutely no relevant instructions. It's not even clear what chipset you need to get a driver for from what's in the zip file. I've been using GNU/Linux since 1995, recommend it to friends, and this kind of thing is terrible.

So once it works, is it any good? I was able to get 100Mbps out of it, which is OK and an improvement on the wireless G stuff that's easier to get drivers for, but it's not exactly a speed demon either. That said, latency was far more consistent than I've seen with other adapters. It seems a solid piece of kit.

If you're buying it for Ubuntu, try the above commands first and see if they work before buying this. If you're buying it for another Linux distribution, try to get hold of whatever package contains the "88x2bu" driver. If you can get these, then yes, I'll recommend this adapter to you because I have no complaints about the hardware. But two stars off for advertising it as Linux compatible while providing useless "drivers" that'll leave customers scrabbling to find something to make it work.

[Joe2Shoe]

Personally, I would remove the current Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter.
Then, see if this works:
1. First establish internet connection by other means, for example by means of the tethering feature of your cell phone:
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... ernet.html

2. Then execute the following command lines in the Terminal, one by one:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential
mkdir -p ~/src
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu-20210702.git
cd ~/src/88x2bu-20210702
sudo ./install-driver.sh

3. Reboot and test.