I just got this thing in the mail today. Bought it because someone in the comments said "plugged it in to linux and it worked right out of the box. Definitely not true. soo... tried Pilot6's solution, but it didn't work for me. Spent the last few hours digging. Long story short, found this other project by the same guy on github https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8814AU
Here's what I did. Maybe someone smarter than me can fix my syntax if I'm not being very efficient...
git clone -b driver-4.3.21 https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8814AU.git
cd rtl8814AU
sudo make && sudo make install
output of make install
install -p -m 644 8814au.ko /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
/sbin/depmod -a 4.4.0-59-generic
So I ran
sudo modprobe -v 8814au
and got the below
insmod /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/8814au.ko
DMESG shows this
[4188.649295] rtl8814au 3-2.4.3:1.0 wlx2c4d5404a218: renamed from wlan
at this point I clicked the panel wifi icon and had two adapters. turned off the internal one (laptop) and connected with the new one. The adapter name was blank when typing in the password. Just ran speedtest.net and pulled 188 down and 53 up (Mbps). Was pulling about 45 down and 15 up before the new adapter. Hope this helps!