TP-Link TL-WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter not working on Ubuntu 12.04

TP-Link TL WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter Ubuntu
TP-Link TL-WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter on Ubuntu 12.04

It has been quite a long time, over a decade to be precise, since I last used Linux. I have to remember good old friend Linux out of necessity. A decade ago I used RH Linux and I remember clearly I had to waste all my time in finding out drivers and making Linux work on bulky Compaq Presario machine.

This time I decided to try out Ubuntu after I kept reading all praises for it. I wasn’t disappointed. Within few hours I was all ready to rock ‘n’ roll with this shiny Ubuntu system without much trouble until I decided to hook TP-Link TL-WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter to it.

It fails and I was right all along in assuming that no matter how far Linux can evolve it will never catch up with the Windows when it comes to working with external devices.

Before purchasing this adapter I did research to make sure that it works with Ubuntu 12.04. I did find some forum posts with problems but they were resolved and I hoped that if I ran into trouble I’ll be able to resolve it as well.

It’s lazy saturday afternoon and I’ve already wasted whole of morning in figuring out how to make TP-Link TL-WN822N work with Ubuntu 12.04.

I took wrong turn and went through all the fixes posted on various forums. Unfortunately none of them worked for me. I even ended up in upgrading, re-installing and finally installing ubuntu 12.04 from scratch.

The Problem

TL-WN822N shows up in the usb device list. Run following command and you will see the adapter is listed.

lsusb

In the network connection I could see loads of other Wireless networks except mine. This proved that there was no problem with the device itself and problem lies in the driver.

The Solution

It’s already late afternoon when I finally got it working.

The simple, short and sweet solution is to install the latest Realtek driver.  Following are step by step instructions.

1) Download Realtek driver for Linux from Realtek website 

Visit following link and download driver from the mirror sites mentioned.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=48&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#RTL8192CU

If above link doesn’t work then search for RTL8192CU driver on Realtek website.

2) Download and install the driver

After downloading above driver, unzip it.

cd to the folder where you unzipped the driver and run following commands. If you are not root then use sudo before these commands where required.

chmod 755 ./install.sh
./install.sh

3) Blacklist existing drivers

vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

At the end add followings

blacklist rtl8192cu
blacklist rtl8192c_common
blacklist rtlwifi

4) Auto load module

vi /etc/modules 

Add 8192cu at the end of this file.

5) Reboot

reboot

After above I could see my Wireless network which works like a charm without any trouble.

I ended up wasting my whole day on this simple problem. I wish someone could have done it already in simple steps.

Anyone whos says Linux is better than Windows deserves whacking. Linux still remains in the same age old primitive stage where you always end up messing with drivers.

You will have to repeat above steps each time you update kernel.


Comments

17 responses to “TP-Link TL-WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter not working on Ubuntu 12.04”

  1. Dude i am noob to this
    do i neeed to download the file in backtrack itself ???

    1. You mean the driver? Yes, you have to download the driver, unzip it and follow the rest of instructions.

      It always works. Even I don’t remember all these steps and I’ve done it many times in the past on various systems over and over again. I just literally follow what I’ve written here.

      Elaborate me where you are stuck and I’ll bail you out.

  2. Hi Ajay,

    I’m also having trouble with my TP-Link TL-WN822N.
    I followed all your steps but I’m not sure if I exicuted them correctly because my adapter isnt working.
    My computer is also plugged into ether internet but I use the TP-Link adapter for WiFi cracking only.
    I dont know if that is maybe interfering with the adapter.
    Could you tell me a way (if there is one) to check if did your stept correctly and if not how to find out what I did wrong.

    Thanks in advance

    1. There are 2 things to remember in this whole driver business on any nix system, the first one is to find correct driver and second one is to make sure that there ain’t any other conflicting drivers installed on the system.

      You said you have Ethernet, try to remove that and see if WiFi shows up. It might not be logical but sometimes things work out without any logic.

      Another thing I wanted to mention is the Ubuntu version. This method will work only for Ubuntu 12.04 and not for other versions. Wanted to mention it just in case you are having other version. Once I did mistake and tried to install WiFi driver on latest version of Ubuntu and it failed.

      If it still doesn’t work then keep thinking and playing around, I’m sure you will find a way out. Try Ubuntu and other forums as well.

  3. Gregorio Avatar

    Up till now your solution worked, but after updating kernel from 3.8.0-33 to 3.8.0-34 in Ubuntu I have a problem with access to the Internet. If I add belows lines to blacklist.conf and modules file then is written that my Realtek USB WLAN is not ready. I’ve tried “modprobe rtl8192cu” but I receive a message: FATAL: Error inserting rtl8192cu (/lib/modules/3.8.0-34-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.ko): Device or resource busy

    When I installed drivers only I can connect with my network, however though connection I haven’t access to the web.

    What should I do? Maybe do I uninstall all drivers associated with this device?

    1. Yes you can try uninstalling all other drivers and then do a clean and correct driver installation.

      If it still doesn’t work then may be driver is not supported on 3.8.0-34? I’m on Windows right now, next time I’ll access my Linux box I’ll check what’s the kernel version I’ve on my system.

      As I replied earlier, there are only two things to look for in this whole Linux driver business, (1) correct & compatible driver and (2) no conflict with other drivers/devices. If you stick with these 2 rules of thumb then you will figure it out sooner or later.

      Powodzenia!

      1. Gregorio Avatar

        It doesn’t work. Either I didn’t uninstall all drivers associated with the device or there is another problem. First I had used a command: locate rtl8192 and then I removed directories which included rtl8192cu files, but I have other files, similar to these. Now, after re-installing I have something like that: http://pastebin.com/M5PinhsD (rtl8192e and rtl8192u – what is this? These files I didn’t delete). Unfortunately, the device “is not ready” still. Any ideas?

        Thanks for previous reply.
        Regards.

        1. You just need to comment/remove other drivers list in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file. I can’t think of anything else. If it still doesn’t work try to ask question in Ubuntu forum.

  4. Just did a Ubuntu 12.04.4 Desktop install and did not need to install these drivers. Things worked out of the box.

    1. Glad that they finally got it in the box. No messing around anymore.

  5. Hi, I followed the instruction and finally worked for me.
    I want to ask how to disable the native wireless card.
    Thanks.

  6. Sir, could you please help me out to make tp-link 822n working in vmware workstation or any other virtual machines . I want to use it with kali linux or backtrack.

    Thanking you in Advance

    1. I haven’t used VmWare so don’t know what goes there. If you remove all other WiFi drivers and follow the steps as I explained above, as applicable to you, then you might be able to figure it out. As I said earlier it all comes down to to finding the correct driver.

  7. Hi there! this directions could to use for tp link TL-WN725N? I’ve been searching a lot but I don’t know to do it… haha really I am a Linux noob user… I hope you can help me with this.

    1. You follow the same rule of thumb for any device with any make/model.
      Find a driver for that device and install it. If simple installation doesn’t work then check the configuration file associated with that device.

      In your case find driver for TL-WN725N and install it. If it doesn’t work then fix the configuration file as I explained above.

      If it still doesn’t work then Google for solution or ask in the official forums.

  8. Nikos fil Avatar

    Hello,

    I used you direction to install the drivers but at the end of install.sh gave me 2 errors
    cc1: some warnings being treated as errors
    make[2]: *** [/home/nekuleo/Downloads/RTL8192CU/driver/rtl8188C_8192C_usb_linux_v4.0.2_9000.20130911/os_dep/linux/os_intfs.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/home/nekuleo/Downloads/RTL8192CU/driver/rtl8188C_8192C_usb_linux_v4.0.2_9000.20130911] Error 2
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/3.16.3-200.fc20.x86_64′
    make: *** [modules] Error 2

    moreover when I completed the instructions the USB adaptor was ded, even the led stoped blinking.
    I used some other instruction to finaly make it alive again but still I cant connect to my AP.

    Thank you in advance

  9. LoLGuy Avatar

    LoL. Linux is better than Windows, you think Microsoft makes the drivers for Windows or what? It’s not a Linux problem that some companies do not care about making good drivers for Linux.

    Ubuntu recognizes lots of Wifi devices (in Ubuntu 14.10 the WN822N works out of the box), more than Windows, you just had a problem by coincidence and you, based on just one case, wrote this shitty post? xD. SAD.

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