[Internet] Is there a way I can force my WiFi driver (Realtek RTL8812AU) to stay put when doing updates and upgrades?

[tlkpc]

Hello,

When I run updates and upgrades, for some reason, my WiFi driver uninstalls for my Asus USB-AC56 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac adapter and I'm not sure why.

I use the 8812au-20210820-main driver from https://github.com/morrownr/8812au-20210820

I simply run:

sudo ./install-driver.sh

every time it is uninstalled.

The option in Software Sources (using sudo software-properties-qt) that says "Continue using a manually installed driver" does not help either.

Thanks for reading!

[claydoh]

I susoect that it isn't removing the driver, but that you are getting a new kernel update, and the DKMS system either wasn't installed, or is failing for some reason.
Drivers need to be built for the specific kernel, and DKMS is usually used to rebuild this each time a new one is installed.
I will wager that if you boot to a previous kernel after a new one is installed, you will have wifi there.

https://github.com/morrownr/8812au-20210820

Highly recommended packages:

• dkms
• rfkill
• iw
• ip

The only item here iirc that you would not have by default is dkms. So, install this, and the next time you run the install script, it should set up the automatic driver build for you.
It also can be a good idea to sometimes re-download the files from git, and re-doing the install/update process as described there.