Ubuntu – Netgear N-300/ WNA3100 USB Adapter for Ubuntu 16.04

Thanks for the tips and advice. I spent 3 hours on the problem and finally gave up with the Netgear USB Wifi adapter. I'm done struggling with Netgear hardware on Linux.

I drove to the closest PC shop and bought an Edimax EW-77IIUAn 150 Mbps Wireless USB adapter. It worked out of the box - No installation whatsoever :-) I plugged it in, and Ubuntu immediately detected it and connected to my wireless network.

Sometimes it's just not worth the trouble to get around driver issues.

UPDATE

For compatible hardware it's a good idea to look at these sites:

• Ubuntu Friendly (though it's by system rather than part)
• Ubuntu hardware support page

For wireless cards you can go directly to the wireless support page.

Just used ndiswrapper to install a WN3100-100ENS on Lubuntu 16.04.1. Almost easily, it got to the state where the driver was installed and present.

But it took much longer for me to get connected to my wireless router (with wpa2 security). So, I added wpa_gui, which seemed to get things rolling. But, still push button WPA didn't work, many manual attempts failed, mostly with password rejection. In the end, I needed "linssid" which reported that my modem expected WPA2 and TKIP -- so in wpa_gui, I used these parameters to add the "network" (SSID, etc). It connected immediately. (Before trying this, I had expected that the required connection parameters would be discovered automatically)

Actually, I just noticed that there is a status tab in wpa_gui, and you can scan for networks there. Also, the network notification applet in the task bar, seems to be unaware that I do have a wi-fi connection. You also have to run wpa_gui with "sudo" in a terminal window (even though it shows up as a menu item). On my Lubuntu system, if you use the network notification interface on the task bar, you will continously get asked for the password. Also, once you connect through wpa_gui, this task bar interface thinks that wifi is disconnected. The only interface I have found which works is wpa encryption is wpa_gui.