Dlink usb wireless

I bought a random USB wireless dongle and tried to get it working on Ubuntu Raring Ringtail. It wasn't flawless.

The device came in a box labeled "D-Link Wireless N Nano USB Adapter (DWA-131)".

dmesg saw the device when plugged:

Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445492] scsi6 : pata_amd
Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445580] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=2001, idProduct=3314
Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445584] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445587] usb 1-1: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445589] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Realtek
Sep 12 21:33:02 potato kernel: [    1.445591] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001

lsusb saw the device:

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2001:3314 D-Link Corp. 
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.10
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass         0 
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x2001 D-Link Corp.
  idProduct          0x3314 
  bcdDevice            2.00
  iManufacturer           1 Realtek
  iProduct                2 802.11n WLAN Adapter
  iSerial                 3 00e04c000001
  bNumConfigurations      1

lshw and nm-tool did not see the device.

Based on the model number (DWA-131), I trried to use ndiswrapper without much success. The ndiswrapper database says that DWA-131 should show up in lsusb as 07d1:3303 and use the rtl8192su.sys driver. But when I install that, it complains that the hardware is not present.

After failing ndiswrapper, I googled for the product and device ID from lsusb and found this page:

http://wikidevi.com/wiki/D-Link_DWA-171_rev_A1

That gave me a link to several linux drivers. I picked one and it worked. So I should have just ignored the box and I would have been more successful.

After getting everything working, nm-tool sees the device:

root@potato:~# nm-tool

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected (global)

- Device: wlan1  [Auto ResortNet2] ---------------------------------------------
  Type:              802.11 WiFi
  Driver:            rtl8812au
  State:             connected
  Default:           yes
  HW Address:        78:54:2E:0E:60:24

  Capabilities:
    Speed:           65 Mb/s

  Wireless Properties
    WEP Encryption:  yes
    WPA Encryption:  yes
    WPA2 Encryption: yes

  Wireless Access Points (* = current AP)
    *ResortNet2:     Infra, C4:01:7C:30:4A:08, Freq 2437 MHz, Rate 2 Mb/s, Strength 78
    ResortNet2:      Infra, C4:01:7C:3A:78:C8, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 2 Mb/s, Strength 57
    MiFi4620LE Jetpack 37BB Secure: Infra, 00:15:FF:44:37:BB, Freq 2417 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 54 WPA2
    ResortNet2:      Infra, C0:8A:DE:05:F0:F8, Freq 2437 MHz, Rate 2 Mb/s, Strength 55
    ResortNet2:      Infra, C4:01:7C:39:AD:38, Freq 2462 MHz, Rate 2 Mb/s, Strength 49
    ResortNet2:      Infra, C4:01:7C:3A:B9:28, Freq 2462 MHz, Rate 2 Mb/s, Strength 49

  IPv4 Settings:
    Address:         172.20.100.39
    Prefix:          22 (255.255.252.0)
    Gateway:         172.20.100.1

    DNS:             8.8.8.8
    DNS:             8.8.4.4

lshw sees it:

lshw -C network

  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       bus info: usb@1:1
       logical name: wlan1
       serial: 78:54:2e:0e:60:24
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8812au ip=172.20.100.39 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn

The driver that eventually worked was:

root@potato:~# lsmod | head
Module                  Size  Used by
8812au               1009947  0