I have Kubuntu 20.04 LTS running like a charm on a (quite old) desktop without wireless card. I have to move this machine in a room that has no wired connection, so I added a USB dongle to get wifi access: TP-Link Archer T2U nano - AC600.
Setting the driver for this model (Realtek chip) is a common thing. but on my PC it didn't work. I first thought the problem was related to the driver, but I finally managed to connect manually, following these instructions.
I now have a connection script
#!/bin/sh
rfkill unblock wlan
wpa_supplicant -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlxc006c342ad68
dhclient wlxc006c342ad68
that I have to run with sudo at startup, and after wakeup from sleep mode.
Comments:
- The rfkill is needed to "wake up" the dongle, otherwise the LED stays off and it doesn't work
- 'wlxc006c342ad68' is the local name of the wlan chip
My interpretation is that if the above script works, then there is no problem with the driver. Correct?
One option would be to make this script 'permanent' (I didn't succeed to promote it to a service, as explained in the above link), but it's obviously not the best method. I would prefer to restore the normal functioning of KDE, namely having a network applet in the tray that allows to detect and connect to the wifi.
Actually it seems I have a problem with the network manager: even if the wired connection works without any issue, I don't have any network-related icon in the tray. I can manually add a wireless connection in the GUI of the system configuration / network, but I'm not able to use it.
I tried to reinstall the network manager:
sudo apt remove plasma-nm
sudo apt install plasma-nm
but it didn't change anything.
