22.04 No Wi-Fi Adapter Found

Ubuntu 22.04 is not detecting my Netgear A6210 Wifi adapter. It uses mt7612u chipset from Mediatek, which should be covered by the mt76 driver in the linux kernel 5.19.

sudo modprobe mt76 and sudo modprobe mt76-usb both return nothing, so they should be working. I also tried rebooting and sudo service NetworkManager restart but the issue persists.

Here's some more terminal info that should be useful:

$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net
27:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)
    Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] X570-A PRO motherboard [1462:7c37]
    Kernel driver in use: r8169
    Kernel modules: r8169

$ nmcli device status
DEVICE   TYPE      STATE      CONNECTION         
enp39s0  ethernet  connected  Wired connection 1 
lo       loopback  unmanaged  --

$ ip address show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp39s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 2c:f0:5d:2a:a0:6a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.1.152/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute enp39s0
       valid_lft 42986sec preferred_lft 42986sec
    inet6 2603:8080:900:3631::1ec6/128 scope global dynamic noprefixroute 
       valid_lft 604585sec preferred_lft 604585sec
    inet6 fd00:f405:9585:7526::1ec6/128 scope global dynamic noprefixroute 
       valid_lft 604585sec preferred_lft 604585sec
    inet6 2603:8080:900:3631:822f:3ecf:70cf:3d8f/64 scope global temporary dynamic 
       valid_lft 604585sec preferred_lft 85606sec
    inet6 2603:8080:900:3631:c87:e639:bf70:b5d8/64 scope global dynamic mngtmpaddr noprefixroute 
       valid_lft 604692sec preferred_lft 604692sec
    inet6 fd00:f405:9585:7526:adba:f31:f6ff:71df/64 scope global temporary dynamic 
       valid_lft 604585sec preferred_lft 85606sec
    inet6 fd00:f405:9585:7526:46c0:1443:64b2:e3fd/64 scope global dynamic mngtmpaddr noprefixroute 
       valid_lft 604692sec preferred_lft 604692sec
    inet6 fe80::29ab:bf30:5f76:756f/64 scope link noprefixroute 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

$ lsusb
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 003: ID 046d:c539 Logitech, Inc. USB Receiver
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0846:9053 NetGear, Inc. A6210
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1462:7c37 Micro Star International MYSTIC LIGHT 
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:0aba Logitech, Inc. PRO X Wireless Gaming Headset
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1c4f:0202 SiGma Micro Usb KeyBoard
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Any idea why the adapter isn't being recognized? It works just fine in Windows on the same machine.

EDIT:

jacob@jacob-MS-7C37:~$ sudo dmesg | grep mt76
jacob@jacob-MS-7C37:~$ 

No results returned.

Without knowing specifically about that controller, your OS Ubuntu 22.04 was released in April 2022, and will have stable software that might not know about your newer network adapter. Sometimes the hardware isn't all that new, but the support for it in Linux is.

So I would start by installing the "hardware enablement" kernel, that has a bunch of extra drivers.

sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-22.04

You might also look through the kernels available using apt search linux-image to see if there is a newer one you can fetch.

Of course, this requires a network connection, so you'll have to set up that wired connection, or do some shuffling of .deb's using USB keys. Whichever kernel you choose, get the linux-image and the matching linux-modules .deb.