Please Help! Linux Mint (Ubuntu) cannot detect Alfa AWUS1900 Card..

foozball3000

foozball3000

Executive Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
Messages
5,929
Reaction score
1,738
Location
Kyalami
I'm at a loss here..

I've installed and re-installed the drivers for my new Alfa Card, but I cannot get Linux Mint to recognize it.
The drivers seem to be working, and the device is listed in lsusb with the proper name.
But I cannot see it under iwconfig, airmon-ng, or the Network Manager

VirtualBox on the other hand can use it without any issues.

If I mount it on one of my VMs, it works perfectly fine. Within the VM it works as expected with iwconfig and airmon-ng.
But on the base OS (Linux Mint), I just cannot get the OS to recognize it as a network adapter.

I feel like I've run out of things to google.. just ending up with the same tutorials on how to install the driver through dkms.
(The driver, I'm assuming, is working perfectly.. otherwise VirtualBox wouldn't be able to use it?)
 
Am running an ALFA with an RTL8812AU chipset on Ubuntu and Fedora using the aircrack-ng driver. Your device has the RTL8814AU chipset. The aircrack-ng driver for it is available on GitHub at https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au. Have not tried this latter one, but with some luck it may be a starting point for resolving the issue.
 
garyc said:
Am running an ALFA with an RTL8812AU chipset on Ubuntu and Fedora using the aircrack-ng driver. Your device has the RTL8814AU chipset. The aircrack-ng driver for it is available on GitHub at https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au. Have not tried this latter one, but with some luck it may be a starting point for resolving the issue.
Click to expand...
Good morning. That's the exact driver version that I'm running (8814). I'm not sure why Mint (Ubuntu) doesn't pick it up as a network controller. It is detected as a working USB device, which mounts just fine with the VMs.
The challenge at the moment is that I don't know what to google anymore
 
Little Mac said:
gist.github.com

How to Install the Netgear A7000 (RTL8812AU/21AU/14AU) Linux Wifi Drivers.

How to Install the Netgear A7000 (RTL8812AU/21AU/14AU) Linux Wifi Drivers. - howtoinstalla7000linux.md
gist.github.com gist.github.com
perhaps?
Click to expand...
Nope, I've updated the OS and Upgraded it to the latest kernel. But no change. The driver is loaded, and shows in both VirtualBox and any USB listing, but is not recognized as a Network Adapter.

But.. THANK YOU REDDIT!
Found this... https://github.com/morrownr/8814au

Works like a charm! Gonna take it for a spin and see if there are any other errors
 
Well, too soon to celebrate.
Neither Airmon nor iwconfig can set the card to monitor mode..

I either get that Terminal just hangs and does nothing.. or I get Operation Not Permitted.
Sigh... it would be so nice tot to have to boot up a VM every time I want to use it.
 
is it not maybe apparmor or something stopping the direct calls to the card for injection?

Try disabling it temporarily and see if airmon-ng can work better with the card?
 
neoprema said:
is it not maybe apparmor or something stopping the direct calls to the card for injection?

Try disabling it temporarily and see if airmon-ng can work better with the card?
Click to expand...
I'll give that a try sometime this week. The normal Blueway dongle works just fine though.

Perhaps I'm being silly, I bought this rather pricey gadget, it should be Alfa Support's problem. Gonna see if they can help out.
 
Rickster said:
What the heck is an Alfa Card?
Click to expand...
googlethatforyou.com

Here, Let Me Google That For You

Passive-aggressively teach your friends how to Google. For all those people who find it more convenient to ask you rather than search it themselves. Not associated with Google.
googlethatforyou.com googlethatforyou.com

It's a fancy wifi dongle, a lot more powerful than the standard stuff, that's used in various IT fields. I need it for my studies in Cyber Security
 
s4a said:
@foozball3000 Where did you get your Alfa AWUS1900 from?
Click to expand...
Amazon USA. It was cheaper to import and pay corrupt import duties than to buy local.
There SHOULDN'T be any extra tax on tech items, but yeah...
And from Amazon Direct Shipping, only took 3 days to get to JHB... the delivery service after that (And who magically takes the whole import tax budget without any explanation) took nearly a week.

So if you want to do the same, use a separate shipping service. Those that give you a P.O. Box then ship it when the crate is full. They'll give you a fair handling fee with Customs.
 
foozball3000 said:
Amazon USA. It was cheaper to import and pay corrupt import duties than to buy local.
There SHOULDN'T be any extra tax on tech items, but yeah...
And from Amazon Direct Shipping, only took 3 days to get to JHB... the delivery service after that (And who magically takes the whole import tax budget without any explanation) took nearly a week.

So if you want to do the same, use a separate shipping service. Those that give you a P.O. Box then ship it when the crate is full. They'll give you a fair handling fee with Customs.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the headsup. Ye most electronic are duties exempt, but one will always have to pay the 15% VAT.
I have found an online store. What are the benefits of the AWUS1900 over the Alfa AC1200 (AWUS036ACH)?
 
s4a said:
Thanks for the headsup. Ye most electronic are duties exempt, but one will always have to pay the 15% VAT.
I have found an online store. What are the benefits of the AWUS1900 over the Alfa AC1200 (AWUS036ACH)?
Click to expand...
Yup, but how Amazon works is to charge you R800, then rely on Armar.. (something like that) delivery service to invoice them for the customs charge, which magically is all the money. They claim to not know why it's that much, and that you need to speak to Amazon, and Amazon obviously don't know since they didn't deal with customs. (Isn't Africa fun?)

Regarding the benefits, I honestly don't know. It's a lot more powerful in terms of range and signal stability than my RaLink Blueway, but I'm still a noob in really using it's power effectively.
So for WiFi Shannanigans, it's damn amazing to see how far it can pick up signals. But I've been so busy since I've got it, that I haven't really had time to set up some labs and really make use of it.

The main reason decided to risk it and buy it over other models was that it offers a resell value. If I find it was a bad purchase or need the cash back, it will sell within minutes for roughly the same price as I bought it. (Since the local price is nearly R2,500)
 
s4a said:
Thanks for the headsup. Ye most electronic are duties exempt, but one will always have to pay the 15% VAT.
I have found an online store. What are the benefits of the AWUS1900 over the Alfa AC1200 (AWUS036ACH)?
Click to expand...
Hi, what did you end up getting? I still haven't really used my AWUS1900, plainly put, it's garbage
 
*Update.. and still not resolved. I've taken a break with this until recently.

This card is just garbage for several reasons.
No official support - contacting Alfa is pointless. I might just have a faulty device, but never got to have that conversation. So no idea.

Power... Eventually got it to work on Linux Mint, side by side the laptop's built in device gets better signal than the Alfa Card. (10-20%)

Brand new 2023 Kali VM.. it's hard to know if it's actually working or not. Can't set the channel, so have to ignore all errors. Most programs and scripts can't use the card, since all of them says "cannot switch to monitor mode", and putting it in monitor mode manually doesn't help the situation.

The few things that I can get it to work with on Kali are things that work in Mint as well, and the onboard wifi adapter does a better job than the AWUS1900

There are labs that I need a card like this for, and despite a lot of time spent following various solutions, this expensive piece of junk remains useless.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X