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There's a lot of info online about how to install the TP-Link AC1200 T4UH version, or similar, but nothing on the T5E as far as I could find.

How do you setup the TP-Link AC1200 T5E PCIe Adapter on Debian 11?

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Apparently TP-Link adapters are a major pain to install on Linux, especially on a non-Ubuntu distro. However, the processes was pretty painless for me on Debian 11 (bullseye). Unless you are an experienced user, it might be difficult to figure out how you can set it up, so here's a simple guide for this device. However, these steps should work with other devices.

Note that the device is just an adapter for the actual WiFi card (the little green chip):

wifi card

The actual WiFi card in my case was an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265.You'll have much better luck searching for drivers with the actual WiFi card's name rather than the adapter's.

actual card

Finding your card

Start by installing hardware info tool lshw (after inserting the adapter into an empty PCIe slot,of course):

sudo apt install lshw

Then run

lshw -C network

It should output something like this:

you@yourcomputer:~# lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Wireless 7265
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlp2s0
       version: 59
       serial: 18:cc:18:ed:3f:73
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
                                       👇👇👇 pay attention to this
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=5.14.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 firmware=29.4063824552.0 7265D-29.ucode ip=192.168.1.111 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:29 memory:f7efe000-f7efffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       ...and so on

Look for the device matching the one on the adapter; in this case it was the Wireless 7265 one. Under configuration for that device, note that it says driver=iwlwifi.

This is the driver you need for this device. It actually might already be installed. To check this, run

sudo apt show firmware-iwlwifi

Note the firmware- prefix; make sure to add it to whatever driver you're searching for.

That should return something like this if it is installed.

Package: firmware-iwlwifi
Version: 20210315-3
Priority: optional
Section: non-free/kernel
Source: firmware-nonfree 👈 remember this
Maintainer: Debian Kernel Team <[email protected]>
Installed-Size: 117 MB
Suggests: initramfs-tools
Homepage: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
Tag: admin::hardware, role::app-data, use::driver
Download-Size: 13.4 MB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/non-free amd64 Packages
Description: Binary firmware for Intel Wireless cards
 This package contains the binary firmware for Intel Wireless cards
 supported by the iwl3945, iwl4965, and iwlwifi drivers.
 .
 Contents:
                    👇 the wifi card is listed here, so you can move on
  * Intel Wireless 7265 firmware, version 25.228.9.0
    (iwlwifi-7265-9.ucode)
  * Intel Wireless 7265 firmware, version 17.bfb58538.0
    (iwlwifi-7265-17.ucode)
  ...and so on

If it is installed, make sure your WiFi card is listed in the package description under Contents. If it is listed, skip the next step and move on to Setting up a connection, if not, or if it wasn't installed at all, make sure to complete the next step.

Installing the drivers

If the package source doesn't say nonfree, you should be able to directly install it with

sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi

and move on.

However if it is a nonfree package (nonfree here is unrelated to payments of any kind; the package is free to download), then because of copyright/patent/licensing issues, it can't be availible for direct download. You'll have to enable downloading packages from nonfree sources.

To do this you need to edit the apt sources file at /etc/apt/sources.list. You can do this in an editor of your choice or through the command line

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Edit these lines by adding contrib non-free to the end of them both (the file might look slightly diffrent for you):

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 11 _Bullseye_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20211107-12:44]/ bullseye con>

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 11 _Bullseye_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20211107-12:44]/ bullseye cont>

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main 👈 add "contrib non-free" here (without the quotes)
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main 👈 also add it here

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free

# bullseye-updates, to get updates before a point release is made;
# see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free

# This system was installed using small removable media
# (e.g. netinst, live or single CD). The matching "deb cdrom"
# entries were disabled at the end of the installation process.
# For information about how to configure apt package sources,
# see the sources.list(5) manual.

Then save CtrlS and exit CtrlX. You can run cat /etc/apt/sources.list to print the file contents and double check it was saved correctly.

You should now be able to install the driver with

sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi

Setting up a connection

Now that the driver is installed, you can connect to the WiFi. There's a couple ways listed here, but I think the easiest is using connman.

Install with

sudo apt install connman

Open connman

connmanctl

Enable WiFi

connmanctl> enable wifi

Scan Networks

connmanctl> scan wifi
Scan completed for wifi

Show networks

connmanctl> services 
YOUR_WIFI_NETWORK_NAME   wifi_COPY_THIS_PART_managed_psk
...      ...

Connect

connmanctl> agent on
Agent registered

connmanctl> connect wifi_COPY_THIS_PART_managed_psk 
Agent RequestInput wifi_COPY_THIS_PART_managed_psk
Passphrase = [ Type=psk, Requirement=mandatory, Alternates=[ WPS ] ]
WPS = [ Type=wpspin, Requirement=alternate ]

Passphrase? 👈 it'll prompt you for your password here
Connected wifi_COPY_THIS_PART_managed_psk

Exit

connmanctl> quit

Your WiFi info will be saved and it'll reconnect automatically on system startup.

Test if it works by unplugging any Ethernet cables so the WiFi card is the only way it could possibly connect to the internet. Then you can ping a random website to see if there's a response. E.g.:

you@yourcomputer:~# ping google.com
PING google.com (142.251.45.46) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from dfw25s47-in-f14.1e100.net (142.251.45.46): icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=12.8 ms 👈 got some responses, looks like 
64 bytes from dfw25s47-in-f14.1e100.net (142.251.45.46): icmp_seq=2 ttl=115 time=13.7 ms     everything is good.
64 bytes from dfw25s47-in-f14.1e100.net (142.251.45.46): icmp_seq=3 ttl=115 time=13.4 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s47-in-f14.1e100.net (142.251.45.46): icmp_seq=4 ttl=115 time=15.2 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s47-in-f14.1e100.net (142.251.45.46): icmp_seq=5 ttl=115 time=13.3 ms
⚠️ Hit Ctrl-C or it won't stop

And you're done.

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  • Just a heads up for anyone coming to this later, on debian 12 this guide worked, but I had to blindly install the driver, the network device in lshw was showing as UNCLAIMED and did not show any driver in the configuration, just "latency=0", i installed the firmware suggested and rebooted, then the driver worked and showed with the driver info in lshw and I was able to enable wifi, before this it said "wifi is not available"
    – Zachary Craig
    Commented May 9 at 22:28

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