Secure Boot Information
Question: The driver installation script completed successfully and the driver is installed but does not seem to be working. What is wrong?
Answer: This question often comes up after installing the driver to a system that has Secure Boot on. To test if there is a Secure Boot related problem, turn secure boot off in the system BIOS and reboot. If the driver works as expected after reboot, them the problem is likely related to Secure Boot.
What will increase my chances of having a sucessessful installation on a system that has Secure Boot on?
First and foremost, make sure Secure Boot is on when you initially install your Linux distro. If your Linux distro was installed with Secure Boot off, the easiest solution is likely to do a clean reinstallation with Secure Boot on.
Ubuntu is used as the example but other distros should be similar to one degree or another. During the installation there will be a box on one of installation pages that will appear if the installation program detects that Secure Boot is on. You will need to check the appropriate box and supply a password. You can use the same password that you use for the system if you wish. After the installation and reboot completes, the first screen you should see is the mokutil screen. Mokutil will guide you through the process of setting up your system to support Secure Boot. If you are unsure what to do, I recommend you seek guidance from your distro documentation or user forums. Having Secure Boot properly set up in your installation is very important.
The install-driver.sh script currently supports Secure Boot if dkms
is installed. Here is a link to the dkms website. There is information
regarding Secure Boot in two sections in the README.
Here is a link regarding Debian and Secure Boot:
https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot
There is work underway to add Secure Boot support for systems that do not
have dkms available or if a manual installation is desired.
Question: Is WPA3 supported?
Answer: WPA3-SAE is supported. It works well on most modern Linux distros but not all. Generally the reason for WPA3 not working on Linux distros is that the distro has an old version of wpa_supplicant or Network Manager. Your options are to upgrade to a more modern distro such as those released after mid-2022 or compile and install new versions of wpa_supplicant and/or Network Manager.
Question: I bought two usb wifi adapters based on this chipset and am planning to use both in the same computer. How do I set that up?
Answer: Realtek drivers do not support more than one adapter with the same chipset in the same computer. You can have multiple Realtek based adapters in the same computer as long as the adapters are based on different chipsets.
Recommendation: If this is an important capability for you, I have tested Mediatek adapters for this capability and it does work with adapters that use the following chipsets: mt7921au, mt7612u and mt7610u.
Question: Why do you recommend Mediatek based adapters when you maintain this repo for a Realtek driver?
Answer: Many new and existing Linux users already have adapters based on Realtek chipsets. This repo is for Linux users to support their existing adapters but my STRONG recommendation is for Linux users to seek out USB WiFi solutions based on Mediatek chipsets. Mediatek is making and supporting their drivers per Linux Wireless Standards guidance per the Linux Foundation. This results in far fewer compatibility and support problems. More information and recommended adapters shown at the following site:
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi
Question: Will you put volunteers to work?
Answer: Yes. Post a message in Issues or Discussions if interested.
Question: I am having problems with my adapter and I use Virtualbox?
Answer: This article may help.
Question: Can you provide additional information about monitor mode?
Answer: I have a repo that is setup to help with monitor mode:
https://github.com/morrownr/Monitor_Mode
Work to improve monitor mode is ongoing with this driver. Your reports of success or failure are needed. If you have yet to buy an adapter to use with monitor mode, there are adapters available that are known to work very well with monitor mode. My recommendation for those looking to buy an adapter for monitor mode is to buy adapters based on the following chipsets: mt7921au, mt7612u, mt7610u, rtl8821cu, and rtl8812bu. My specific recommendations for adapters in order of preference currently are:
ALFA AWUS036ACHM - long range - in-kernel driver
ALFA AWUS036ACM - in-kernel driver
ALFA AWUS036ACU - in-kernel driver (as of kernel 6.2) and out-of-kernel driver
To ask questions, go to USB-WiFi
and post in Discussions or Issues.
Question: How do I forget a saved WiFi network on a Raspberry Pi?
Note: This answer is for the Raspberry Pi OS without Network Manager active.
Step 1: Edit wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo ${EDITOR} /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
Note: Replace ${EDITOR} with the name of the text editor you wish to use.
Step 2: Delete the relevant WiFi network block (including the 'network=' and opening/closing braces).
Question: How do I disable the onboard WiFi in a Raspberry Pi?
Note: This answer is for the Raspberry Pi OS.
Answer:
Add the following line to /boot/config.txt
dtoverlay=disable-wifi