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I have Ubuntu 19.04 (kernel: 5.0.0-13-generic; gcc version: 8.3.0) installed on an old pc that has a broken Wi-Fi card. So I replaced it with an external TP-Link wireless USB adapter. But I cannot follow the instructions:

https://static.tp-link.com/2018/201812/20181207/Installation%20Guide%20for%20Linux.pdf

I already downloaded these files and sent to the PC from another one, as it has no internet connection:

https://www.tp-link.com/en/support/download/tl-wn823n/#Driver

If I have to compile (I don't even know what it means) the driver, I don't know what it means "go to the driver directory and run the following commands".

What do I need to do to get this working?

cocomac
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Kevin Me
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2 Answers2

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If you have internet access by any other means (wired or through USB tethering), you can installed the RTL8192EU drivers for your TP-LINK TL-WN823N wireless adapter from Mange's GitHub repo. Here are the steps as described on the GitHub page:

Building and installing using DKMS

(1) Install DKMS and other required tools:

sudo apt-get install git linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms

(2) Clone this repository and change your directory to cloned path.

git clone https://github.com/Mange/rtl8192eu-linux-driver
cd rtl8192eu-linux-driver

(3) Add the driver to DKMS. This will copy the source to a system directory so that it can used to rebuild the module on kernel upgrades.

sudo dkms add .

(4) Build and install the driver.

sudo dkms install rtl8192eu/1.0

(5) Distributions based on Debian & Ubuntu have RTL8XXXU driver present & running in kernelspace. To use our RTL8192EU driver, we need to blacklist RTL8XXXU.

echo "blacklist rtl8xxxu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8xxxu.conf

(6) Force RTL8192EU Driver to be active from boot.

echo -e "8192eu\n\nloop" | sudo tee /etc/modules

(7) Newer versions of Ubuntu has weird plugging/replugging issue (Check #94). This includes weird idling issues, To fix this:

echo "options 8192eu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/8192eu.conf

(8) Update changes to Grub & initramfs

sudo update-grub; sudo update-initramfs -u

(9) Reboot system to load new changes from newly generated initramfs.

systemctl reboot -i

(10) After the reboot, you can check that your kernel has loaded the right module:

sudo lshw -c network

You should see the line driver=8192eu

Zanna
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Jags
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  • thank you very much in linux mint 19.3 tricia it worked perfectly ... perfect end – τασος ματσιγκας May 07 '20 at 16:16
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    Unfortunately it did not work for linux mint 20.1 Cinnamon... it says driver=r8169 and the wifi adapter does not show up as connected... – hamagust Mar 03 '21 at 14:24
  • Thanks, it works now. I usually hesitate to install drivers from github for security reasons. I fear there might be a malicious code or sth (is that possible?) But since mange's repo is mentioned here I think it's trusted – Mido Jun 06 '21 at 19:57
  • @mido I'm glad it worked out for you, and yes, drivers from his repo are used by many. – Jags Jun 06 '21 at 21:15
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    I was struggling with a TP-Link TL-WN823N in Ubuntu 20.04. Worked nicely! – Govinnage Rasika Perera Jun 13 '21 at 03:42
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    Thank you very much, this driver saved me from a very slow wifi connection... I cannot understand why it was good with an old adapter, and very slow (specially in upload) with a new and more powerful adapter. – Stefano Jan 16 '22 at 13:54
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In addition to @Jags' comment, there is a simpler script to automate all his/her steps under the following repo.

I have validated myself on Ubuntu 20.04 and it works wonderfully.

  • Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/clnhub/rtl8192eu-linux
  • Under the repo, run ./install_wifi.sh

Done! :)

Dat
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