How to use TP-Link Archer T3U USB wifi in Fossapup 9.5? (SOLVED)

[PuppyJJ]

Greetings from the UK to everyone!

I’m JJ, and I’m a complete newbie to the world of Linux, having used MS Windows pretty much my entire adult life. I’m making the switch to Linux now... but better late than never, right?

I’m using the pretty awesome FossaPup 9.5 (kernel 5.4.53) ... and I love it! Puppy has turned my otherwise heading-for-the-trash-can laptop into one that responds just as fast (or better!) as my family members’ laptops (all running Windows) which have 3 times the cores and at least double the RAM!

As the not-so-innovative title of my post suggests, I’ve been having a tough time trying to get my USB Wifi adapter (TP-Link Archer T3U) to work. I only purchased it earlier this week after making what I now know to be a classic newbie error: reading that the device is compatible with Linux. They failed to mention that TP-Link or RealTek doesn’t provide any official support by way of drivers the way they do with Windows or MacOS. Shucks.

Here's what I've tried thus far...

The lsusb command gives me the following output:

Bus 001 Device 010: ID 2357:012d TP-Link 802.11ac NIC

Internet searches show me that the driver required for 2357:012d is RTL8812BU (or RTL88x2BU).

I tried lsusb | grep -i rtl in the terminal to see if there was anything for my device, but I got no output.

I also tried the following to see if I had the required firmware... but the only firmware I have is for the mpcie wifi card that I purchased the USB adapter to replace (it’s a 802.11n card, and so both range and speed is quite terrible!). I see nothing for my USB adapter.

dmesg | grep firmware

[ 1.500159] acpi PNP0A08:00: [Firmware Info]: MMCONFIG for domain 0000 [bus 00-3f] only partially covers this bridge
[ 79.535067] rtl8723be: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723befw_36.bin
[ 80.397778] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin failed with error -2

Even in my Windows days I wasn’t ever tech savvy, and now I’m only just getting to grips with concepts like the Linux kernel, etc... and so me being able to compile a driver -- with my current ground zero level of Linux knowledge -- is about as realistic as me winning Olympic gold medals.

I tried to use the ndiswrapper tool in the Puppy Network wizard, and I managed to use the MS Windows netrtwlanu.inf file to create a driver... and although it does seem to associate with the device, the USB adapter still doesn’t show up as a network interface on the Simple Network Setup, Frisbee, or Network Wizard (I only see my wan0, ultra slow and limited mpcie interface).

ndiswrapper -l

netrtwlanu : driver installed
device (2357:012D) present

I’ve tried everything I know of, and spent pretty much all of yesterday trying to google some sort of solution... but virtually all solutions are non-Puppy friendly.

I’m unwilling to ditch Puppy for other distros, even though there appears to be more solutions to issues like what I’m currently experiencing... and so Is there anybody here that can advise what exactly I can do to try and get my Archer T3U to finally work?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[bigpup]

New USB WIFI adapters is a constant issue.
Usually it is the driver missing, missing firmware, or both.
Those things are constantly changing and very hard to keep up with what they need.

Here is a topic on how to get and compile a driver, but may be too much for you to try.
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=635

ozsouth is the Puppy expert on providing people WIFI hardware drivers.

Hopefully he will shortly see your topic and help you.

He is the one that provided most of the info in that how to topic.

People on this forum will get it working, just give it a little time to get what you need.

[PuppyJJ]

Thank you brother!

I gotta admit that this experience of getting a USB adapter that isn't out-of-the-box compatible with Puppy Linux may turn out to be a blessing in disguise after all. Although losing something like 8 hours trying to find online solutions yesterday was frustrating, I feel like I've unintentionally learnt a fair bit about the Linux file system as well as the general issue of there not being ready made drivers around.

I said in my initial post that compiling a driver is something that's well out of my league as a newbie... But now I want to give it a shot!

I'm going to use the linked instructions and see if I can get the job done. I'll report back regarding whether or not I succeeded

Thanks again bigpup!

[PuppyJJ]

IT WORKED!!

I'm genuinely surprised at how simple and quick it was to compile the driver!

If there is anybody else out there who is as technologically challenged as me (and believe me, it's tough to be worse than me on this) who thinks -- just as I did -- that compiling a driver sounds like something that requires a Linux equivalent of a black belt, then please, just give it a go. Follow the instructions given at the link that bigpup has provided, and you'll have a driver in no time!

My Archer T3U issue can be marked as solved