Drivers for Realtex usb wifi dongle

**ruberad** · June 24th, 2018

Hi, I searched a bit, and couldn't find instructions that seemed to get me to drivers for my specific usb wifi dongle. There are lots of threads about Realtek, but I can't figure out how to identify the model of my dongle

I ran the wireless-info script and sent it to pastebin:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/n3B7NhWtTH/

I ran the script with the ethernet plugged in and the the wifi dongle in a usb port so that lsusb recognized it.

Note for some reason the little led doesn't come on when this (allegedly brand new) dongle is plugged in, but I'm hoping that the fact that it's recognized by lsusb means it's working anyways. (Maybe drivers are needed so the computer can instruct the dongle to turn on its LED?)

Note also this old craptop has a non-working internal wifi (which is why I'm trying to revive it with a dongle)

If anyone can point me to a thread that shows how to install the appropriate drivers I'd appreciate it.

[SOLUTION] thanks to jeremy31! see post #20 that directs to the driver that got it done

**jeremy31** · June 24th, 2018

Your internal seems to pick up wifi signals fine but your USB dongle has 2 drivers loaded and that might be causing a problem so lets prevent one from loading

Code:

echo "blacklist rtl8192cu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8192cu-blacklist.conf

Reboot

**praseodym** · June 24th, 2018

Check for the internal card

Code:

echo "options ath5k nohwcrypt=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf
sudo modprobe -rfv ath5k
sudo modprobe -v ath5k

**ruberad** · July 3rd, 2018

Hi, thx for posts, I was expecting email notification but didn't get any is why it took me so long to get back. I will give a try to those commands and post back later, but

> Your internal seems to pick up wifi signals fine

Note the internal sees plenty of wifi networks, and I can select mine and enter password, but it fails to connect. If doing something in software will fix the internal, that's a great option too.

**ruberad** · July 5th, 2018

Originally Posted by jeremy31

Your internal seems to pick up wifi signals fine but your USB dongle has 2 drivers loaded and that might be causing a problem so lets prevent one from loading

Code:

echo "blacklist rtl8192cu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8192cu-blacklist.conf

Reboot

I tried that, it didn't seem to do anything. What should I check? I tried grepping for anything called rtl or 8291 in the output of lsmod and before and after there was only one with a number 81920 that seemed to be all about sound, not wireless.

**ruberad** · July 5th, 2018

Originally Posted by praseodym

Check for the internal card

Code:

echo "options ath5k nohwcrypt=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf
sudo modprobe -rfv ath5k
sudo modprobe -v ath5k

I tried that -- what is that supposed to accomplish? Because what I have now is two network icons in my tray lower right, they seem identical. They both had the same bad behavior of the internal card, i.e. they see the available networks, but when you try to authenticate it just keeps flashing back asking for the password -- and no I know the password is right. This machine/install was previously able to use a different wifi dongle to connect, and when that was working the network tray popup would show that both the internal and the dongle were seeing all the networks; connecting through the dongle worked, but connecting through the internal didn't.

Should I run wireless-info again and pastebinit?

**ruberad** · July 5th, 2018

How do I turn off or block the internal wifi which is not working, to get it out of the way?

**jeremy31** · July 5th, 2018

So

Code:

lsmod | grep rtl

Didn't show the rtl8xxxu module as loaded? That would be strange.
Now I understand, you must have manually loaded those modules. try

Code:

sudo apt-get install git dkms build-essential
git clone https://github.com/jeremyb31/rtl8812au-driver-5.2.20.git
sudo dkms add ./rtl8812au-driver-5.2.20
sudo dkms install rtl8812au/5.5.20

Reboot

If you don't want the internal to work

Code:

echo "blacklist ath5k" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Code:

sudo modprobe -r ath5k

**ruberad** · July 5th, 2018

Also I am seeing now that the package for the dongle came with a little cd with a directory called Linux. There are two subdirectories with very long names, like RTL8811CU and RTL8812BU. I assume the CU one is what I want?

I tried to compile them with the install.sh script but that was a massive fail, even after installing make and gcc -- what else am I likely to need?