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I currently own a TP-Link Archer T2UH V2 USB WiFi adapter which works as a charm on my Windows partition. I Dual Boot Ubuntu and wish to use this adapter with my Ubuntu installation. As far as I understand I should install a driver for my specific adapter but I have looked around on AskUbuntu and have tried some of the solutions people have posted, but they don't seem to work fully. Whenever I install one of those options either the USB adapter does not work on a restart, or the USB adapter works for the first 20 minutes of use and then suddenly fails.

EDIT1:

How to install TP-LINK Archer T4U driver?

I followed along with this installation and all went swimmingly, I installed it using dkms and after one restart the wifi adapter was working fine. Upon swichting off the computer, starting my windows partition and later starting up ubuntu the adapter no longer functioned. I then deleted the driver, using ./dkms-uninstall as described in the README. I then reinstalled the driver using make and make install. This would not preserve the driver upon updating the kernel but I thought that was fine as long as it worked. This worked better and upon restarting the Ubuntu partition the adapter seemed to work. But later on, after once again restarting (this time not switching over to the windows partition in between Ubuntu restarts) the adapter worked at first. But after approx. 20-30 minutes the adapter didn't work anymore. This behaviour repeated after every restart. I then removed the driver using the make uninstall command as described in the README.

After trying this driver I attempted to follow the guide as described in: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/archer-t2uh/#Driver

This however wouldn't even install, as when I ran the make command I get an error that has something to do with c or gcc I suppose. Thus I could not finish the installation. This most likely had to do with the different versions of the Ubuntu kernel and gcc that they used for this "driver" (which was created 4 years ago).

END OF EDIT1

EDIT2:

https://askubuntu.com/a/802209/953371

Upon following this question and answer fully the wifi worked at first. But after restarting the internet connection could not be created. I could see all local wifi signals around me but a connection could not be created. Upon uninstalling this version (using DKMS) and restarting the wifi adapter seems to be working. But after approx. 5-10 minutes the wifi connections kicks the bucket and reconnecting does not work anymore. This may have to do with the faulty installation/uninstallation of another driver.

END OF EDIT2

I was wondering if there was some fool proof way to use my adapter without these issues. Looking around AskUbuntu I only see questions like these that are quite old, and not specific to my model. Hopefully anyone can help me out.

And if the driver is too hard to install, does anyone know a good alternative USB WiFi adapter that works out-of-the-box with Ubuntu 18.04?

Daniel
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  • Wi-Fi adapter issues are generally hardware specific and the first place you should look for any hardware issue is the manufacturer. In this case, they publish a Linux driver on the support site. Are you already aware of this? https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/archer-t2uh/#Driver – Nmath Sep 07 '20 at 18:56
  • @Nmath I have removed all driver installations after trying them out. So as far as I know they won't have an effect. – Daniel Sep 07 '20 at 19:06
  • I am aware of that file, but it does not seem to work. When I run make (as described in the PDF) make fails to run. I believe this has to do with the fact that their driver was created using a different version of Ubuntu and gcc. – Daniel Sep 07 '20 at 19:07
  • @Nmath I have now added more information, hopefully this is enough. – Daniel Sep 07 '20 at 19:59
  • Am I correct in saying that you can get the adapter to work, but it doesn't persist after reboot? If you are following this answer are you using sudo when advised, and did you also complete the second half of the answer? Please also copy-paste in your question the full, and unredacted error regarding: "I get an error that has something to do with c or gcc I suppose" Errors will tell you exactly what's wrong, and sometimes even explicitly tell you how to fix them! :D – Nmath Sep 07 '20 at 20:19
  • @Nmath I did in fact follow the entire answer, and used sudo. I will retry my steps and add the results. Thanks for the help thus far by the way. :) – Daniel Sep 07 '20 at 20:34
  • @Nmath Have now redone all the steps from that first link. I am writing this from my Ubuntu machine so it has worked (for now). Hopefully it will last, tomorrow I'll test it further. Hopefully it holds on for longer than 20 minutes tomorrow. – Daniel Sep 07 '20 at 20:50
  • @Nmath I have added some more edits, something strange happens upon installing that driver. – Daniel Sep 08 '20 at 09:19
  • @Nmath I have found the chipset for this specific device, shown on this website: http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/TP-LINK_Archer_T2UH.

    What can I do with this information?

     – Daniel Sep 08 '20 at 09:42
  • I don't see any of the terminal output from your last attempt to install drivers, particularly the gcc errors. This info is likely key to next steps. Chipset is not nearly as specific as the driver that was written explicitly for the device. Let's not abandon trying to figure out how to install it – Nmath Sep 08 '20 at 15:18

1 Answers1

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So for now it seems that the best way to fix this issue is finding the chipset of your specific dongle and find a driver for it that works with your current kernel. I found out, through lots and lots of googling, that my chipset was the mt7610u. This chipset has annnoyed Linux users for many years. I then tried to find the most up to date driver for this chipset, which happened to be https://github.com/xtknight/mt7610u-linksys-ae6000-wifi-fixes. Installing this driver using DKMS seemed to fix the adapter issues. I also found another driver, which seems to be made for a newer version of the linux kernel. https://github.com/rebrane/mt7610u

Only problem for now is getting the 5Ghz band to work. This also means that, for now, if you have a dual band router you can only connect to the 2.4Ghz band, and not the 5Ghz band.

I also had the issue that the dongle would power off after about 20 minutes of use. This has to do with power saving features that the BIOS has, these options should be shut off. They can also be shut off within Windows if you are dual boot.

Hopefully this helps someone out!

Daniel
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