This morning my wifi dongle was so slow! So i asked ai for help, going on for an hour trying to get a better driver for the rtl8188 or rtl8188eu… 3 ways all went against a wall, then the thing started to be in a loop… now I just pulled it out and restarted and all is fine …
Just, was ai right and is the generic driver for it buggy and replacing the driver is a good idea? Trying to prevent this from happening every day
Realtek have a reputation for providing buggy drivers. I had a Realtek NIC driver that worked intermittantly . Good idea to get the latest driver you can download. Then look carefully at your Wifi config … especially wpa_supplicant
see reply no 18
and this is helpful
“““quote”””
was ai right and is the generic driver for it buggy and replacing the driver is a good idea? Trying to prevent this from happening every day
Realtek have a reputation for providing buggy drivers. I had a Realtek NIC driver that worked intermittantly . Good idea to get the latest driver you can download. Then look carefully at your Wifi config … especially wpa_supplicant
…………………….
Anyone has a good source for a functioning driver for rtl8188eus chip for my up-to-date Linux Mint?
Because AI only delivered ones that are not compatible with my kernel, and the one I found manually didn’t either …gave an error while adding. It feels I am going in circles…
Error! Bad return status for
module build on kernel:
6.17.0-14-generic
To do a quote… highlight the text you want to quote with mouse… then a ‘Quote’ button will appear … use that button and it will open the edit window If it is not already open) and include the quote.
Are you sure you are adding the new module using the correct instructions?
There has been no kernel change recently that would make modules incompatable… there was a change around kernel 5.19 but that was ages ago.
I know very little about drivers for Linux, so I posed your question to ChatGPT. Since it is from AI, the info is believe to be correct, but verify.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install rtl8188eus-dkms
I have a lame sh!TTY RTL USB dongle… Also was someone dyslexic in charge of the driver naming standard? Shouldn’t Realtek be RLT, not RTL?
I stupidly bought it after some knob said it was 100% compatible with Kali… It’s NOT!
i.e. you have to compile the driver from source… And give the “driver” for the 8812 is “dkms” the install will be doing a bit of compilation for that to…
Anyway I shoulda asked Amazon for my money back… But it was nearly 3 years ago and never got around to it… I was intending learning a bit more about Kali and pentesting (but never got around to it).
Anyway - it’s not an 8812 (which is available in Ubuntu repos) it’s an 8814 - so I ended up here :
And
sudo apt install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dkms git libelf-dev rfkill iw
git clone https://github.com/joseguzman1337/8814au.git
then
─x@titanii ~/tmp/trippy
╰─➤ git clone https://github.com/joseguzman1337/8814au.git
Cloning into '8814au'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1487, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (362/362), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (76/76), done.
remote: Total 1487 (delta 317), reused 296 (delta 286), pack-reused 1125 (from 1)
Receiving objects: 100% (1487/1487), 11.12 MiB | 2.37 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (795/795), done.
╭─x@titanii ~/tmp/trippy
╰─➤ cd 8814au
╭─x@titanii ~/tmp/trippy/8814au ‹main›
╰─➤ sudo ./install-driver.sh
: ---------------------------
: install-driver.sh v20230227
: x86_64 (architecture)
: 16/16 (in-use/total processing units)
: 65762956 (total system memory)
: 6.17.0-14-generic (kernel version)
: gcc (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1) 13.3.0
: dkms-3.0.11
: SecureBoot disabled
: ---------------------------
Checking for previously installed drivers.
: ---------------------------
Starting installation.
Installing 8814au.conf to /etc/modprobe.d
Detected in-kernel rtw88_8814au module.
Blacklisting rtw88_8814au to avoid device binding conflicts.
The dkms installation routines are in use.
Copying source files to /usr/src/rtl8814au-5.8.5.1
Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/rtl8814au/5.8.5.1/source -> /usr/src/rtl8814au-5.8.5.1
The driver was added to dkms successfully.
: ---------------------------
Sign command: /usr/bin/kmodsign
Certificate or key are missing, generating them using update-secureboot-policy...
Secure Boot not enabled on this system.
Signing key: /var/lib/shim-signed/mok/MOK.priv
Public certificate (MOK): /var/lib/shim-signed/mok/MOK.der
Building module:
Cleaning build area...
kernelver=6.17.0-14-generic sh ./dkms-make.sh........
Signing module /var/lib/dkms/rtl8814au/5.8.5.1/build/8814au.ko
Cleaning build area...
Compile time: 139.84 seconds
The driver was built by dkms successfully.
: ---------------------------
8814au.ko.zst:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
- No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
- Installing to /lib/modules/6.17.0-14-generic/updates/dkms/
depmod....
The driver was installed by dkms successfully.
: ---------------------------
Info: Upgrade this driver with the following commands as needed:
$ git pull
$ sudo sh install-driver.sh
Note: Upgrades to this driver should be performed before distro upgrades.
Note: Upgrades can be performed as often as you like.
Note: Work on this driver is continuous.
: ---------------------------
Do you want to edit the driver options file now? (recommended) [Y/n] n
Do you want to apply the new options by rebooting now? (recommended) [Y/n] n
Despite the reboot recommendation, I didn’t and it worked… it was just a test… I don’t intend to use it on this desktop machine as it already has a PCI USB WiFi and Bluetooth card (with Intel chipset and works out of the box).
Anyway above was very quick - maybe as long as a minute? I didn’t time it… Could have been 5 minutes…
The only use for this RTL piece of c@rp is to passthrough to a VM running Kali so I can test out “monitor mode”…
I mostly have WiFi turned off even with my PCI card - don’t need it I’ve got gigabit ethernet… I mainly just use the BlueTooth…
I may have missed the point here but netgear and tp link Wi-Fi adaptors come in around 10 euros and they are just plug and play with mint. Easy answer.
Did that and the very next day it wasn’t working probably, at 6.5mbit/s which created all kind of trouble. So, after a safari through terminal commands I found out none work, and here it was confirmed that realtek drivers are very buggy, so I want to install a better one which seem to be available, but the three I tried all only supported older kernels. What I understand, it was quite cheap the wifidongle so I expect it to be around for a while (it came with an install cd-rom, says enough). Somehow, ironic since I only got it to bridge the time till my too new one is supported… well, from 2024 appartently but only in kernel 7.1 it will be added finally. As you can guess this laptop has one built-in…
Tried three from github, guided by AI, the first gave an error which apparently meant my linux was too modern for it. The second didn’t want to download at all, kept asking for a password. And when I manually found one specifically for my rtl8188 and mentioning it supports the newest linux mint 21/22 kernel 6.1x it gave an error while installing, which according to ai said that this Linux was too new for the driver, so it also was out of date…
according to the text it should work, but it doesn’t.
Hence I tried asking some more experienced people regarding linux…
LoL, again, yesterday in the chat loop with ai I noticed he started to mention things I already had done, real intelligent these text predictors. So I plugged out the usbdongle, started without, linux didn’t even start then, turned it off, plugged it back in, it started normal and also worked again as advertised and as the day before. ….good old “did you reboot”, but before I will be destroying my usbport the next three to four months I wanted to solve it properly. Makes sense??
I am not sure of much regarding this, only that it won’t install in any of three ways suggested by AI on thinking level and after asking if it is sure about the way to do it… and that my WiFi was so slow it let everything online time-out, I am sure of that too. After some tests, iwconfig. ping and traceroute I saw how slow it all is and since everything else on the router is working perfectly normal I was pretty sure it was this device, and highly probable the newly acquired wifidongle…
But if it really all doesn’t work on this build, only half knowledgeable about it tbh. I have some of the screenshots, well pictures, of the terminal errors and such… if you’re interested:
for the last I copied this, looked sensible
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelebek333/kablosuz
sudo apt update
sudo apt install rtl8188eus-dkms
and got this
(as new user I could only upload one media…)
What happened after this command? Did it install ok?
Try to remove the module:
sudo modprobe -r rtl8188eus
Do you get an error?
EDIT: you could also check if the USB dongle is soft blocked:
rfkill list
My laptop:
rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: acer-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
if the dongle is softblocked just do this:
sudo rfkill unblock wifi
Here is what to do
" The osdep_service.h (or similar, such as osdep_service_linux.h) file is typically found in Realtek Wi-Fi driver source code, such as those for rtl8812au or rtl8821au. It is not usually provided by a standard system package but rather through kernel module source packages, such as:
rtl8812au-dkms (or rtl88xxau-dkms)If you are compiling a driver and missing this file, you likely need to install the DKMS package for your specific hardware or the linux-headers package for your current kernel (sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r))."
That came from a google AI summary
have you considered whether it may be easier to buy another dongle of a brand that is known to work in Linux.
I shared exactly that picture with the ai and it told me it didn’t install correctly and advised me to remove what had been done to avoid conflicts, which made sense to me. And I don’t want things gobbled up, so before continuing I made it undone…
when I now create that list it’s all ‘no’ only onboard bluetooth it says softblock yes… I don’t mind because I know my Mediatek chipset is not supported yet and I wait for linux 7.1 where an article someone shared in another discussion (maybe even you I suddenly realise, forgive me many people contribute and I can’t remember everything completely) explicitly mentioned my mediatek will be supported from 7.1 on
I actually am considering this, even though today at startup it worked fine. So I have no idea what exactly caused my problems in the first place. This all seems a bit trivial now it works again, but I don’t tend to not repair the roof because it isn’t raining.
It annoys me if something is wrong, to me Linux till now is just that difference from Windows: In windows I often encounter unexplainable problems and linux till now was so pertfectly predictable, only trouble was well grounded and I understood it… hehe
Are you saying earlier in your reply that I should have done more in the terminal, that those command-lines just were half the work? That’d at least explain why it didn’t work. I am just sceptical if I get errors, since I am used to things working here on this system specifically and errors mean I do something wrong.
I have become complacent over the years using windows 7, 10 and 11 home editions and rarely messing about with things, but after also having used 3.1, 95, 98, XP (yeah I only skipped pesky 8 and 8.1) I did no my way around in there. I actually programmed things on Philips MSX saved in on tape hehe. This Linux environment is still something I need to get used to, even though my old Dos experience does help me a bit.
System:
Kernel: 6.17.0-14-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.6.7 Distro: Linux Mint 22.3 Zena
base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: Vivobook Go E1504FA_E1504FA v: 1.0
serial:
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: E1504FA v: 1.0 serial:
UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: E1504FA.316 date: 11/27/2025
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.6 Wh (100.0%) condition: 42.6/50.1 Wh (85.1%)
volts: 12.7 min: 11.9 model: K340042 status: full
CPU:
Info: quad core model: AMD Ryzen 5 7520U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2 rev: 0 cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 2 MiB L3: 4 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1145 high: 1397 min/max: 423/4386 boost: enabled cores:
1: 1397 2: 1110 3: 1110 4: 1110 5: 1110 6: 1110 7: 1110 8: 1110
bogomips: 44717
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Mendocino vendor: ASUSTeK driver: amdgpu v: kernel
arch: RDNA-2 bus-ID: 03:00.0 temp: 36.0 C
Device-2: ShineTech USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam driver: uvcvideo type: USB
bus-ID: 5-1:2
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast platforms:
active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa
v: 25.2.8-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD
Radeon 610M (radeonsi raphael_mendocino LLVM 20.1.2 DRM 3.64
6.17.0-14-generic)
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib devices: 2
Audio:
Device-1: AMD Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.1
Device-2: AMD ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor vendor: ASUSTeK
driver: snd_pci_acp6x v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.5
Device-3: AMD Family 17h/19h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.6
API: ALSA v: k6.17.0-14-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active
Network:
Device-1: MEDIATEK vendor: AzureWave driver: N/A port: N/A bus-ID: 02:00.0
Device-2: Realtek RTL8188EUS 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
driver: rtl8xxxu type: USB bus-ID: 3-3:3
IF: wlxccbabdb4c902 state: up mac:
IF-ID-1: ipv6leakintrf0 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A
mac:
IF-ID-2: proton0 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
Device-1: IMC Networks Wireless_Device driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB
bus-ID: 1-2.4:3
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down
bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: no
address:
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 25.68 GiB (5.4%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVL4512HBLU-00BTW
size: 476.94 GiB temp: 25.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 105.18 GiB used: 25.57 GiB (24.3%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p6
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 256 MiB used: 105 MiB (41.0%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 36.0 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 14.9 GiB used: 3.3 GiB (22.1%)
Processes: 312 Uptime: 5h 23m Init: systemd target: graphical (5)
Packages: 2157 Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.21 inxi: 3.3.34
When I mess around like this anyway… I could try and get the actual built-in wifi working too
Does this site here make sense, anyone can assess if this could work:
I think I decided to simply wait, thanks for all your input, it may not have solved it literally speaking but it has helped me to decide what to do, I appreciate all the input here, thanks!
This is what AI just told me after I fed it the site I shared last:
Analysis of the MT7902 Driver (GitHub)
You are absolutely on the right track by looking at the internal hardware. If we can get that working, you can get rid of that USB dongle for good. I have thoroughly analyzed the repository from abdullaabdullazade and the general status of the MT7902 driver for Linux.
The repository you found is what’s called an “out-of-tree” driver. Because MediaTek themselves (until recently) provided no official Linux support for the MT7902, community developers have been trying to adapt the driver from a different model (the MT7921) to fit your chip.
Key points regarding this specific repository:
Status: It is a “work in progress”. Many users report that while Bluetooth often starts working, the Wi-Fi component remains unstable or doesn’t work at all on kernels above 6.1.
Installation Method: It requires you to manually compile kernel modules using make and insmod. As we saw earlier with the dongle, your 6.17 kernel is very sensitive to these types of manual installations.
The instructions in these types of repositories often ask you to delete existing Bluetooth or network files in your system (sudo rm) and replace them with manually created versions.
The Risk: If this fails on kernel 6.17, your Bluetooth might stop working as well, or your system could have trouble booting up.
Kernel Mismatch: Just like with our dongle attempt, there is a high chance you’ll see the Bad return status error again because the code wasn’t written for the very latest Linux components.
There is a very important reason not to mess with these unofficial GitHub files right now: MediaTek has just recently (February/March 2026) submitted official patches to support the MT7902 directly within the Linux kernel.
This means you no longer have to rely on community “hacks”; the support will simply come to you via a standard system update.
Given your previous experiences with the terminal and the 6.17 kernel, I recommend the following:
Stick with the “dongle trick” for now: Now that you know it hits 72.2 Mb/s just by re-plugging it, that is the safest path.
Wait for Kernel 6.18 or 7.1: Official MediaTek support is being rolled out now. As soon as Linux Mint offers a kernel update (check your Update Manager), there’s a good chance your internal Wi-Fi will “just work” without typing a single command.
Hardware Option: If you really can’t wait and have a laptop where the Wi-Fi card is replaceable (like many ASUS models), you can buy an Intel AX210 card for about €20. You plug it in, and it always works immediately in Linux at full speed.
Conclusion on the GitHub link: It’s a brave community project, but for a stable system on kernel 6.17, it is currently too experimental and more likely to mess up your system than help it.
Not really.
There is nothing magic about the CLI interface.. It js just that it is often the only way to do system work. it does have the advantage that you can script what you have done.
I’ve been trying to follow this, but I might of missed it- Did anyone mention power saver? (wifi power saving and usb auto suspend)
That was mentioned by the ai, i checked and powersafer was off actually, so not the culprit
This was answered for me on