Hi guys,
I’ve come into possession of an older computer which is running LXDE just nicely. My problem is, although my TP-LINK USB dongle is listed when I type the “lsusb” command in the terminal (as a Ralink RT5572 device), it has no driver and therefore I can’t access my network.
What would be the best way to solve this particular issue please?
(the distro is Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS if that’s relevant)
My other option is to switch to another light distro which has the driver included, like Mint has. But I’d rather stick with LXDE if possible.
in 14.04 USB wireless adapters based on the RT5572 chip (148f:5572) are covered by the rt2800usb kernel driver…
If you know it works in 14.04 (or its vendor:product ID string matches 148f:5572), you could install the LTS Enablement Stack for 12.04 which should bring you current installation up to the 3.13 kernel (as used in 14.04)
Here’s how:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
If you’re 100% sure you’re running 12.04, open a terminal and run:
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-lts-trusty xserver-xorg-lts-trusty libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-trusty
when that’s finished, REBOOT.
Once rebooted, run:
uname -a
to make sure you’re on the 3.13 kernel.
if that doesn’t automagically sort out the driver, please post the output from:
uname -a
and
lsusb
and
sudo lshw -C network
back here
Thanks Mark, I’ll give that a try but I’ll need to take my tower downstairs to the router.
Brilliant. 
Updated the kernel and now the available wireless networks are displayed. It’s not connecting to mine yet but at least I know Linux is fully aware of it! I might have to fine-tune the dongle’s settings. But thanks for now.