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I am attempting to use a Netgear A6100 wireless USB WIFI adapter on my Sony Vaio laptop with Ubuntu 14.04. The pre-installed wireless card lost bars of signal from my wifi router after installing Ubuntu, so I bought this USB wireless adapter to solve my connection issues.

This is the output for lsusb:

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 001 Device 003: ID 5986:02d3 Acer, 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
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 3938:1032  
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0846:9052 NetGear, Inc. 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

This is the output for sudo lshw -c network:

*-network               
   description: Wireless interface
   product: AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
   logical name: wlan0
   version: 01
   serial: 08:ed:b9:b8:88:cb
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.16.0-46-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.11 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
   resources: irq:16 memory:c0600000-c067ffff memory:c0680000-c068ffff
*-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
   logical name: eth0
   version: 07
   serial: 30:f9:ed:af:9f:a4
   size: 10Mbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
   resources: irq:43 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:c0404000-c0404fff memory:c0400000-c0403fff
*-network
   description: Wireless interface
   physical id: 1
   bus info: usb@3:2
   logical name: wlan1
   serial: 6c:b0:ce:22:ed:3a
   capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8812au driverversion=3.16.0-46-generic firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes wireless=unassociated
BeastOfCaerbannog
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Billy Welsh
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4 Answers4

5

Your device uses the rare and elusive driver 8812au. Please get a temporary wired ethernet or similar connection, open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential git
git clone https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux.git
cd ~/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe 8812au

Your wireless should now be working.

When Update Manager installs a later linux-image, recompile:

cd rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux/
make clean
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe 8812au

Please retain the file and these instructions for that time.

We probably need to blacklist the internal driver to keep from interfering. Please tell me its driver from the command:

 sudo lshw -C network

I will then edit this answer to provide instructions.

chili555
  • 60,188
  • how do i use it to connect to the internet? – Billy Welsh Sep 07 '15 at 21:15
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    Did you successfully install the driver? Do available networks appear when you click the Network Manager applet? – chili555 Sep 07 '15 at 21:27
  • I can confirm this works well on this device. In order to use 5G, you need to properly set regdom in /etc/default/crda and/or run iw reg set followed by the correct code and restart network-manager – mchid Sep 07 '15 at 22:00
  • how do i tell if the driver has been successfully installed? – Billy Welsh Sep 07 '15 at 23:29
  • Please see my edit above in a few minutes. – chili555 Sep 08 '15 at 01:04
  • I get: remote: Repository not found. fatal: repository 'https://github.com/abperiasamy/rt18812AU_8821AU_linux.git/' not found – Jeff Smith Feb 07 '16 at 22:33
  • @JeffSmith It works perfectly for me just now. Please try again. Did you copy and paste the commands from above to your terminal? – chili555 Feb 08 '16 at 14:46
  • Its working now! Thanks! I copied and pasted earlier, but was acting like git wasn't available. Must have been a server issue. Thanks! – Jeff Smith Feb 24 '16 at 02:20
  • The latest update killed my wifi, this no longer works for me. I ran the code to rebuild and I get an error. Is it still working for you? – Jeff Smith Jul 23 '16 at 15:05
  • Please elaborate. What error did you get after make clean, make or sudo make install? – chili555 Jul 23 '16 at 15:10
  • Sorry, the error is when I enter the last command: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert '8812au': Required key not available – Jeff Smith Jul 23 '16 at 15:18
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    Please see: http://askubuntu.com/questions/762254/why-do-i-get-required-key-not-available-when-install-dkms-modules – chili555 Jul 23 '16 at 15:33
  • That was it! Thank you so much for your quick response! – Jeff Smith Jul 23 '16 at 15:50
2

In addition to chilli's instructions above, the dkms option is also available with this driver.

cd
git clone https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux.git
cd rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux
sudo cp -R . /usr/src/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux-1.0
sudo dkms add -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0
sudo dkms build -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0
sudo dkms install -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0

This way, you don't have to re-compile the driver every time you update your kernel.

mchid
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0

16.04 Xenial

I don't have enough "reputation" on this site to comment on mchid's recommendation to use the diederikdehaas driver, but as of this writing, the diederikdehaas driver does not work for the Netgear A6100. There are some files missing from it. In order to get a module that works for the A6100, CONFIG_RTL8821AU needs to be enabled during compile and then there is a build failure due to missing header files. See https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8812AU/issues/99

I stumbled onto a similar Github repository that appears more complete: https://github.com/Rajpratik71/Realtek-rtl8811AU_8812AU_8821AU_linux-source-code.git The 8812au driver produced by this repository works with a6100.

Also working is the rtl8812au driver from https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux

All of these drivers appear to be based on MS Window device driver code from Realtek, but there is no attribution and I didn't see where the source code came from.

The 8812au above driver has about 20% dropped packets; the rtl8812au driver drops something like 300%.

With the 4.4.0 kernel source there is a driver for the 8821ae, which is PCI, not USB. Maybe this one can be adapted.

Michiel
  • 21
0

For 16.04

There is a more up to date version of this driver that works much better on newer kernels 4+. The WPS LED light works and the connection is more consistent with more range as well.

Run the following commands to install:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential git gcc-5
git clone https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8812AU.git
make CC=/usr/bin/gcc-5
sudo make install
sudo modprobe 8812au
echo 8812au | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

click here for more info

mchid
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