Bsrgvty

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

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.

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.

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

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.