This fork is deprecated, the main repository found at the link below is maintained https://github.com/Netgear-A6210-linux-driver/Netgear-A6210 Please use and support this fork.
This driver supports Ralink / Mediatek mt766u, mt7632u and mt7612u chipsets.
In particular, the driver supports several USB dongles such as Netgear-A6210, ASUS USB-AC55, ASUS USB-N53 and EDUP EP-AC1601.
Linux kernel version up to 5.5.5 has been tested for x86_64.
To build the driver, follow these steps:
$ git clone https://github.com/Netgear-A6210-linux-driver/Netgear-A6210
$ cd Netgear-A6210
$ make
$ sudo make install
The driver is mostly tested on 64 bit Ubuntu 15.10 and Debian 8.3 with NETGEAR AC1200 High Gain Wifi USB Adapter. Some other distro/dongle combinations work as well, for example Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" - KDE (32-bit)/ASUS USB-N53 seems to work flawlessly (as reported by Roland Bauer). I have tested it up kernel version 5.5.5 with Arch Linux x86_64 and Arch Linux ARMv7 (Raspberry Pi 2 Model B).
The supported chipsets can be present in other devices. To include additional devices, you need to add corresponding VendorID, DeviceID into the file "rtusb_dev_id.c"
The original code was downloaded from: http://cdn-cw.mediatek.com/Downloads/linux/MT7612U_DPO_LinuxSTA_3.0.0.1_20140718.tar.bz2
The driver provided at this link NO LONGER COMPILES, so do not attempt to use it. I plan on maintaining this driver so that it continues to compile with the newest kernel releases and I would like to deobfuscate it, which is a work in progress.
I am working on creating a tarball for usage with Arch Linux and adding it the the AUR, I may end up adding the package to other distros if requested.
This is work in progress. The driver is functional, however, there are still several issues that need to be addressed, such as the driver providing extraneous output (for debugging purposes) to the kernel logs. Also, hot-unplugging may cause the network manager to become unreliable. After plugging the dongle back in, you may need to restart the manager:
$ sudo service network-manager restart
or
$ sudo netctl restart <profile>
This seems to be Linux distro dependent, but has definitely been observed on Ubuntu, I have not yet had any problems with the driver on Arch.
At present, there is no LED support.
EDUP EP-AC1601 works (or to be precise, should work), but at present there are several problems such as frequent dropping of connection, failure to connect, wildly oscillating signal strength etc. This "feature" also seems to depend on the Linux distro, probably as a result of differing kernels, so please use the most up-to-date installation provided.
On Debian-based distros, you can add the module to DKMS so it will automatically build and install on each successive kernel upgrade. To do this, issue the following commands from within the repo's folder:
$ cd ..
$ sudo mv Netgear-A6210/ /usr/src/netgear-a6210-2.5.0
$ sudo dkms install netgear-a6210/2.5.0
To remove:
$ sudo dkms remove netgear-a6210/2.5.0 --all
This process is automated by the install script as well.