Recommended WIFI USB plug?

[timswait]

I need to get a desktop PC onto WiFi (using tethering from my phone - for some reason USB tethering doesn't work on this phone, it did on my old one, but WiFi tethering does work). So I got a very cheap (about £5 on ebay) tiny USB WiFi receiver. It's hardly any bigger than the USB plug. However it didn't work plug and play, it turned out to have a Ralink MT7601U chipset which isn't natively supported so I followed these instructions to try to set it up https://askubuntu.com/questions/4570...llation#554278
Got to the last line of the instructions

sudo modprobe mt7601Usta

and when I entered that the computer froze completely, not even the mouse would work. Had to hard shutdown it, but it wouldn't restart without hanging. When I took the USB WiFi plug out then it would boot up (phew!) but then I tried plugging it in again and it instantly froze completely again.
So can anyone offer any suggestions for (a) making this work or (b) recommend a similar one that's natively supported and doesn't need me to install any drivers?
Thank you.

[chili555]

I haven't seen any mt7601u device work successfully in many years. I think it's a dead end.

Please check here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2397914

[makhtc]

Using Tp-link from 2 years and still going strong.

[timswait]

makhtc: what model TP-Link are you using? Was it plug and play or did you have to build and install drivers? Are there any of these things that do work plug and play?

[jeremy31]

I have a TP Link TL WN722N 150 Mbps version 1 that works well, plug and play for quite a while with Ubuntu

[timswait]

Thank you Jeremy. If possible I'd prefer one of the tiny ones, I don't need a big antenna on it. Does anyone know of a little one that's plug and play?

[jeremy31]

You could try the WN723N but the small size will limit the distance between you and router. The kernel module is still in staging

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-lin...ux-tpe-n150usb uses the same chipset as the WN722N so that would work

[timswait]

Distance to the router (my phone!) is no issue at all. How about WN725N, do you know if that's also the same chipset? It seems easier to get hold of.

[jeremy31]

The WN725N seems to be supported by the r8188eu module https://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_TL-WN725N_v2

[timswait]

Cracking, I'll give it a try and report back.
Cheers