UGreen AX900 Wifi Dongle Driver
Hey y'all. I made the mistake of buying a Ugreen AX900 wifi dongle. It doesn't have built in support on Linux, which is something I found out about too late (and it was advertised incorrectly!). Anyway, it's working well enough in Windows, so I'm trying to figure out how to make it work in Linux.
In my search I found this site: https://blog.nero.gay/ugreen/ax900/index.html
If anything it shows how wonky a device I bought, but that aside this solution actually works.... in Linux Mint. This solution relies on the Debian package manager. I couldn't find any Fedora solution, and from what I read you can't convert a .deb file into an .rpm one. Is this at all possible to do on Bazzite, and if so, how would you do it?
I figured it might be possible with Distrobox, but I don't think you can install and run drivers using that method, can you?
I'm well aware that the best solution would be to just buy a supported wifi stick, but I think it'd be kinda fun to get this to work. Besides, as wonky as it is it's working in Linux Mint, so I'd also like to make it work in Bazzite if possible.
7 Replies
You could try the following, it's hacky, but it's probably worth a shot:
* Recreate the .deb file like you provided in the tutorial in the distrobox
* Install a package called alien https://wiki.debian.org/Alien (this will let you create a .rpm package from a .deb package)
* Install the rpm package, you created using
rpm-ostree install /path/to/package.rpm (obviously change the path to the actual path)
* Sadly this custom package might interfere with system updates.
If this solution works, and you are comfortable with Github and technically inclined, you might consider making your own Bazzite image with https://github.com/ublue-os/image-template with the driver preinstalled.Ohh I forgot about alien! Fantastic. I’ll give it a try, thanks!
good luck! Hope it works
Huh, I'm getting some weird output. I've tried it with both a Ubuntu 24.04 and a Debian Testing distrobox, but I'm getting the same output:
Huh, converting a different package works fine. I suppose it's the Debian package itself.
I've found another source of a driver that could possibly work, but it requires compiling it myself. Is that at all supported in Bazzite?
https://github.com/shenmintao/rtl8831
GitHub
GitHub - shenmintao/rtl8831: realtek 8851 8831 linux driver
realtek 8851 8831 linux driver. Contribute to shenmintao/rtl8831 development by creating an account on GitHub.
You'd be able to build the driver, but actually installing the custom driver would be a challenge since the /lib/firmware folder is readonly. My guess would be to create a custom image with the custom driver, which sounds like a lot of work. Or potentially try something like Nobara where it's more like a regular Linux system.
Alternatively, you could get a USB wifi dongle with good Linux support out the box
Yeah, making my own image just for my weird wifi dongle seems like a lot of work. It’s fun to tinker, but… well
I think just getting a supported dongle would be way better hahah
That’s what I get for trying to save a couple of bucks! :D