Greetings, this is my first post so please be gentle.
I have just put together a new PC (Athlon 200GE, ASRock B450M Pro4) and have decided against running Windows 10 in favour of the latest version of Ubuntu Studio.
I purchased a TP-Link Archer T1U with my PC Parts, without giving much thought to which operating system I was eventually going to decide upon.
The good news is that there is a Linux driver for the adapter but not the the type of driver that I’m used to.
I’ve been interested in Linux distros for about 15 years and have installed a variety of them on a variety of devices but I’m one of those people who can’t really get my head around the command line thing (I think it’s called ‘actual Linux’).
So I downloaded the driver files (I guess) which are accompanied by a PDF installation guide, which does not seem to be written by someone whose first language is English. This, combined with Linux jargon, is making me consider returning the adapter and replacing it with something that will easily get auto detected.
It is Christmas, however, so I thought I’d give someone the opportunity to help others while practicing the act of ‘participation’ myself.
In the guide, the first step is to ‘Compile the Driver’. They want me to make sure that I have the correct compile tool and kernel sources. It appears that I should bring up the Command prompt (?), type in ‘cat /proc/version’ to find out which compiler was used to compile the Linux system I’m using and then download that compiler using ‘apt-get’.
I’m then supposed to ‘access the directory of driver’ and before compiling, to make sure that the ‘path in makefile.c is suitable for your compile environment of [my] Linux system’ and then type ‘sudo make’ to compile the driver file.
Next I’m asked to go to the directory of the original driver file to run the command ‘sudo bash load.sh’ and type something else (9 lines of code) if that fails. Then type ‘lsmod’ to check if the driver is successfully loaded. Then there are instructions to ‘unload the driver’ if I want.
Anyway, it goes on and on… I’m sure it sounds really easy to a lot of people out there but is there an easier way to do this?
Would I be better off looking for recommendations for a different adapter that will allow me to not go anywhere near a command line? I mean that should be a basic human right, right?
I currently have the system connected to the 'net via an Ethernet cable.
Any advice that helps me get the wireless adaptor working quickly will be greatly appreciated along with any recommendations of an affordable alternative.
Thanks for taking the time to read and (in anticipation) respond. Hopefully I haven’t broken too many rules.
Regards