Legacy MCU revision 1 branch: You are viewing legacy-mcu1. This branch is only for AIC8800D80 or AIC8800DC/DW devices that report chip_id=7, chip_mcu_id=1. It provides complete matched V3 firmware and loader profiles for the D80 upload-limit failure validated in issue #58 and the DC/DW V5 main-application timeout validated in issue #71. Use main for newer chip_mcu_id=0 hardware or when the MCU revision is unknown. See the D80 and DC/DW support notes before installing.

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.

Bluetooth support: This branch initializes the integrated Bluetooth controller for the kernel's standard btusb driver. It does not contain or install aic_btusb.

Note

Bluetooth branch retirement: Do not switch MCU1 hardware to the separate bluetooth branch. That branch is deprecated, is being kept only during migration, and will be removed after the unified builds are validated. legacy-mcu1 already provides Bluetooth through the kernel's standard btusb driver. Its unified installer and device-scoped 368b:8d81 ZLP support are being validated in PR #74; the ZLP module remains inactive on other VID:PID combinations.

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