I Recently Switched to KDE Neon. but it’s Latest version is using the 6.14 kernal, which is not supported on my Brostend USB Wifi adapter. [ See - Brostrend Website ]
my adapter is the AC5L and its in-kernal drivers are only in 6.2 and onwards. while the latest release is on 6.14. i cant see where to download the driver (rtw88_8821cu) and thus have to use 6Gb/sec from my integrated wifi card rather than the 200Gb/sec i am used to.
can someone help me install the drivers? i dont have experience on linux drivers.
Your link shows that kernel suport starts with kennel 6.2, so 6.14 should be supported.
Have you followed their instructions?
It is slightly possible that you may need to disconnect or disable your existing wifi card, in your BIOS or something. Not likey, but I have seen this in the past.
I assume they this isn’t working at all? No blinking led, if it has any?
Does it show when you run the lsusb command so that you can verify that the hardware is detected.? (Dodgy USB port or defective dongle)
As far as I can tell, this hardware should just work without installing Brotrend’s driver, but obviously it’s not for you. I’d follow their instructions to add their driver repo, and possibly contact support.
My slightly different ACL3 has worked just fine out of the box since well before 6.8, though early on the brostrend driver was better. This was back when neon was on Ubuntu 22.04. but again, it’s not the same exact chip that you have.
Okay, i was just checking some stuff and turns out. it isnt my internal wifi card (which is totally fried, broke a long time ago and comes to life occasionally but never when needed)
ive been using the adapter this whole time. but my question is why is the speed suddunly 90% slower?
Which Ubuntu release are you using here? KDE neon is using Ubuntu 24.04, if you are using a newer Ubuntu (25.10), you’ll have a newer kernel (6.17), and thus newer drivers.
If both are 24.04, technically they should work the same, as the desktops used )Plasma or Gnome) would not have an effect on hardware suport at all.
This might be a case where using Bros’ drivers might be helpful.
