support for ASUS AC1200 USB-AC53 Nano wifi dongle

Gary Dale

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Feb 8, 2023, 12:10:06 AM2/8/23

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I thought this would be easier than it's turned out to be. There are Internet posts going back years about support for this device but nothing recent - including a 5 year old Ubuntu post saying it works. Other wifi devices seem to be recognized out of the box or with a simple install of non-free firmware but not this one - at least not in Bullseye or Bookworm.

The adapter itself seems to be quite popular so I'm hoping someone can provide some clues on how to make it work

Thanks.

Alexander V. Makartsev

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Feb 8, 2023, 1:00:06 AM2/8/23

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Your device should be based on "RTL8822B" chip from Realtek, so you need to install "firmware-realtek" package.
If after doing that you still didn't get a functioning network wifi adapter you might need to build driver kernel module. [1]
This is what I had to do to get USB Bluetooth adapter from Asus to work without issues, even though it is supported by kernel in "bullseye".

It is always the best to include extra information about your setup when you asking for help.
At least output from these commands would be a start:
    $ uname -a
    $ lsusb -v -t
    # journalctl -b 0 --no-pager | grep -iE "rtl|rtk_|firmware"

If the output is long you can use "paste" service [2] and send us a link.

[1] https://www.asus.com/ca-en/networking-iot-servers/adapters/all-series/usb-ac53-nano/helpdesk_download/?model2Name=USB-AC53-Nano
[2] https://paste.debian.net/

--
With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀

Gary Dale

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Feb 8, 2023, 9:10:06 AM2/8/23

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Thanks Alexander, but installing firmware-realtek doesn't work. It was the first thing I tried. Secondly, the ASUS driver fails to compile under Bullseye & later. It throws an error:

1.5_33902.20190604_COEX20180928-6a6a/include/rtw_security.h:255:8: error: redefinition of ‘struct sha256_state’
255 | struct sha256_state {
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the same error I find in various drivers from GitHub. They all seem to be for older kernels and no longer compile. The fact that drivers have existed for so long was one reason I thought the device should be reasonably supported by now.

I had considered posting the output of lsusb but it simply shows that the device is recognized. Making it verbose returns a lot of capabilities information but not much else. Here it is:

/: Bus 06.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 5000M
    ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
/: Bus 05.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 480M
    ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
    |__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=, 480M
        ID 0b05:184c ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 10000M
    ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
    |__ Port 2: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=uas, 5000M
        ID 0080:a001 Unknown JMS578 based SATA bridge
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M
    ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/8p, 10000M
    ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/14p, 480M
    ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
    |__ Port 13: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
        ID 058f:6366 Alcor Micro Corp. Multi Flash Reader

The journalctl command returns nothing.

Gary Dale

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Feb 8, 2023, 11:00:05 AM2/8/23

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Found a github repository that compiles on Bullseye at https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu. Then it's a matter of doing the following as root

git clone https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu
cd 88x2bu-20210702 ## date string may different
make clean
make
make install

then rebooting. The wifi dongle now shows in "ip addr".

Anssi Saari

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Feb 9, 2023, 3:40:05 AM2/9/23

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Gary Dale <ga...@extremeground.com> writes:

> I thought this would be easier than it's turned out to be. There are Internet posts going back years about support for this device but nothing recent -
> including a 5 year old Ubuntu post saying it works. Other wifi devices seem to be recognized out of the box or with a simple install of non-free firmware but
> not this one - at least not in Bullseye or Bookworm.

Hm. What I found was the driver has been integrated in kernel 6.2 and if
you need to build it for an older kernel, then they're supported too.
Versions 5.12-6.2 have community support and 4.19-5.11 are supported by
Realtek. I don't know what that means exactly though.

Source: https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu-20210702

I can try to build this with Debian's stable 5.10 kernel at some point
but I don't have the hardware.

Alexander V. Makartsev

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Feb 9, 2023, 5:20:05 AM2/9/23

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On 08.02.2023 20:55, Gary Dale wrote:

On 2023-02-08 09:07, Gary Dale wrote:

The journalctl command returns nothing.

That's strange. Is it possible you've forgot that pound ("#") sign means "run as root"?

Found a github repository that compiles on Bullseye at https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu. Then it's a matter of doing the following as root

git clone https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu
cd 88x2bu-20210702 ## date string may different
make clean
make
make install

then rebooting. The wifi dongle now shows in "ip addr".

Good to hear you've made it working.
You might want to walk an extra mile and setup DKMS [1][2] for it, so it will automatically re-compile and re-install itself after every kernel image update.

[1] https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/dkms/dkms.8.en.html
[2] https://www.xmodulo.com/build-kernel-module-dkms-linux.html

Anssi Saari

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Feb 9, 2023, 8:10:57 AM2/9/23

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"Alexander V. Makartsev" <avb...@gmail.com> writes:

> Good to hear you've made it working.
> You might want to walk an extra mile and setup DKMS [1][2] for it, so it will automatically re-compile and re-install itself after every kernel image update.
>
>
> [1] https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/dkms/dkms.8.en.html
> [2] https://www.xmodulo.com/build-kernel-module-dkms-linux.html

The source actually even includes a dkms.conf file which sets
AUTOINSTALL="yes" and an install script which does dkms add/build/install.

Gary Dale

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Feb 9, 2023, 8:20:05 PM2/9/23

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git clone https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu-20210702 ## date string may different
cd 88x2bu-20210702

make clean
make
make install

then rebooting. The wifi dongle now shows in "ip addr".

Had the wrong git command - now corrected above.

Ended up having another issue after I got it installed (on a friend's machine that had been running Windows 7 badly but is now running Bullseye nicely). Their residence doesn't use a WiFi password, so I thought the device should just connect. Turns out there was a device fingerprinting system in place that worked with an annual voucher number you had to enter to connect to the Internet. Once I got the number, things worked perfectly.

Gary Dale

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Feb 9, 2023, 8:20:06 PM2/9/23

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Thanks. Found that github repo myself. I hope you are right about 6.2
integration, but I'm not sure we'll get there with Bookworm...

Anssi Saari

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Feb 10, 2023, 1:10:06 PM2/10/23

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Gary Dale <ga...@extremeground.com> writes:

> Thanks. Found that github repo myself. I hope you are right about 6.2
> integration, but I'm not sure we'll get there with Bookworm...

In fact I think 6.2 in Bookworm is unlikely since 6.1 is apparently the
next long term kernel and it's in Bookworm now. The next long term
kernel which will likely be something newer than 6.2 might appear as a
backport later. Like 5.15 in Buster at some point.

All the more reason to configure dkms to auto update your driver now.