Important

Choose the branch for your hardware revision before installing. If the driver log reports chip_id=7, chip_mcu_id=1 on an AIC8800D80 or AIC8800DC/DW device, use the legacy-mcu1 branch. It contains the matched legacy firmware and loader profile required to avoid the deterministic firmware upload timeout at 0x170400. Use main when chip_mcu_id=0 or when the MCU revision is unknown.

Hardware revision takes precedence over the separate Bluetooth branch. MCU1 devices should remain on legacy-mcu1, which initializes Bluetooth for the kernel's standard btusb driver. After switching branches, rerun sudo ./install.sh and reboot; switching the Git branch alone does not replace the firmware already installed under /lib/firmware.

Added support for devices with Vendor ID 368B (tested).

Tested on Linux kernel 6.16 with Ubuntu 25.04 and 6.1.0.27 with Debian 12.

Note

Bluetooth branch retirement: The separate bluetooth branch is deprecated and is being kept only during the migration period. Wi-Fi and standard-btusb Bluetooth support are being consolidated into main in PR #73. After hardware validation and promotion, the bluetooth branch will be removed. Existing users may remain on it temporarily; new validation should use test/unified-wifi-bt-zlp. MCU1 hardware must use legacy-mcu1, not the separate bluetooth branch.

Disclaimer

I did not develop this software, The code is sourced from the Tenda U11 driver. I only made some modifications to the code to adapt it to newer kernel versions. Apart from compilation issues, I am unable to address other problems.

Attention

Before installing the driver, delete all aic8800-related folders under /lib/firmware. Using an incorrect firmware version may cause the system to freeze.

Installation Steps

Method 1: Quick Installation (Recommended)

Method 2: Manual Installation

Copy udev rules:

Copy the aic.rules file to /lib/udev/rules.d/:

sudo cp aic.rules /lib/udev/rules.d/

Copy firmware:

Copy the aic8800D80 folder from ./fw to /lib/firmware/:

sudo cp -r ./fw/aic8800D80 /lib/firmware/

Navigate to the driver directory:

Change to the drivers/aic8800 directory:

cd ./drivers/aic8800

Compile and Install the Driver:

First, compile the driver:

make

Then, install the driver:

sudo make install

For any kernel updates, you'll need to reinstall the driver:

make clean
make
sudo make install

Load the Driver

After installation, load the driver with the following command:

sudo modprobe aic8800_fdrv

Verify the Module is Active

Check if the module is loaded correctly:

lsmod | grep aic

You should see output similar to:

aic8800_fdrv    536576  0
cfg80211        1146880 1   aic8800_fdrv
aic_load_fw     69632   1   aic8800_fdrv
usbcore         348160  10  xhci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid,usb_storage,ehci_hcd,xhci_pci,uas,aic_load_fw,uhci_hcd,aic8800_fdrv

After that, plug in your USB wireless network card.

Verify Wi-Fi Device is Active

To check if the Wi-Fi interface is recognized, run:

iwconfig

If the device is still not active, check the kernel logs for any errors related to the driver:

sudo dmesg