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I plan to install Ubuntu soon on my PC. I currently use a TP-LINK TL-WN822N wireless adapter. I want to know if it will work without additional setup.

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  • For what it's worth, I have a TP-link wireless adapter (Model: TL-WN725N). It doesn't work very well at all with AES encryption, but it works fine out of the box with TKIP encryption (in Xubuntu), although the antenna (or lack thereof) isn't great.
    – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx
    Mar 24, 2016 at 6:12

3 Answers 3

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It should work with Ubuntu without additional setup. But kernel driver for this adapter may work unstable. I suggest to install a better driver from source.

sudo apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
cd rtlwifi_new
make
sudo make install

This answer is applicable to hardware version 3.0 of this adapter with a Realtek chip. Previous versions should work well out of the box.

I packaged this driver to DKMS format and added it to ppa. If you instal it from there, you will not need to re-install it after kernel upgrades. It can be installed by

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8192cu-dkms
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  • Basically: you need to access the internet to install the drivers to access the internet. Congratulations: we have a chicken and egg problem! But now, speaking seriously, that git seems like a great source of drivers, updated quite a lot.
    – Ismael Miguel
    May 20, 2015 at 11:56
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    The dongle will work out of the box, but not great.
    – Pilot6
    May 20, 2015 at 12:10
  • I am trying to add a monitor interface on top of this device in Ubuntu 16.04 but iw does not even see it. Any tips? Otherwise, it connects to an AP and seems to work.
    – Konstantin
    Jan 4, 2017 at 16:00
  • Oops: "E: Unable to locate package rtl8192cu-dkms" ... any idea why this might be? NB this is not straight Ubuntu, but Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.3 (meant to be a fork of Ubuntu)
    – mike rodent
    Jan 25, 2018 at 13:40
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    I get "E: The repository 'ppa.launchpad.net/hanipouspilot/rtlwifi/ubuntu artful Release' does not have a Release file. N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default. " for 'sudo apt-get update', this is probably the reason the commenter above me gets 'unable to locate package'.
    – Ezra Steinmetz
    Mar 1, 2018 at 21:51
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Take a look at

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsTP-Link

Look for TL-WN822N

TL-WN822N

Please ensure that you also install linux-firmware package after installing Ubuntu.

If you still have issues please post results of lspci and lsusb commands.

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    Linux-firmware is not needed, lspci is irrelevant, but good hardware version information.
    – Pilot6
    May 20, 2015 at 10:36
  • This worked great for my TL-WN823N, too.
    – Seth
    Aug 27, 2016 at 22:43
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There are 4 different versions of this wireless adapter and they use different chipsets:

  • Versions 1 and 2 use Atheros AR7010.
  • Version 3 uses Realtek RTL8192CU.
  • Version 4 uses Realtek RTL8192EU.

To find out which version you have, take a look at the back of the adapter - it will say something like "Ver:3.0". Alternatively, use lsusb - my TP-LINK WN822N V3 identifies as "Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter".

If you have the Atheros-based one, the driver used is ath9k_htc and it should work out-of-the-box.

This page lists the drivers currently used for Realtek chipsets - essentially, they will all be replaced with rtl8xxxu at some point.

That said, while version 3 works out-of-the-box with the rtl8192cu driver, that driver is really bad (slow speed, disconnects occasionally). You'll want to install rtl8192cu-fixes to make it usable (which will also blacklist rtl8192cu).

I have no information about version 4, but RTL8192EU should work out-of-the-box with the rtl8xxxu driver on newer distros.

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  • From what I understood from this and previous answers, if I have v3 I should use rtl8xxxu, since ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi does no longer work and https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes states that it is obsolote in favour of newest rtl8xxxu. Unfortunately, I do not get any clue on how to install that driver. Could you give more details, please?
    – ccamara
    Aug 2, 2018 at 7:05
  • For Version 4, (RTL81EU) you can install the driver from: github.com/clnhub/rtl8192eu-linux Without this driver I've much problems with very slow connections.
    – ThePoet
    Nov 23, 2019 at 13:09

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