Does Ubuntu 12.10 support ASIX AX88772 Ethernet controller chip out-of-the-box?

Question

Being stuck with this question I am choosing a USB Ethernet adapter to buy to work it around.

Obviously I need an adapter for which Ubuntu has drivers built-in.

So the question is if AXAGO ADE-X5 USB said to be based on the ASIX AX88772 chip is going to work. It is said to support Linux but that doesn't necessarily mean the driver is actually built in to the distribution.

Solution

The driver for this chip is in the Linux kernel module asix. This module will handle a lot of USB vendor/product combinations as of the version in Ubuntu's 3.5.0-18:

$ modinfo asix
filename:       /lib/modules/3.5.0-18-generic/kernel/drivers/net/usb/asix.ko
license:        GPL
description:    ASIX AX8817X based USB 2.0 Ethernet Devices
version:        22-Dec-2011
author:         David Hollis
srcversion:     0889AC645D9EA92D3DE4C5B
alias:          usb:v0B95p7E2Bd*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
alias:          usb:v0DB0pA877d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*

<snip>

alias:          usb:v0846p1040d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
alias:          usb:v077Bp2226d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
depends:        usbnet
intree:         Y

However, I find some (old) bug stating it won't work out of the box in Debian. And, more importantly, if you need this in a Live environment, make sure it is one with one of these packages installed into.

Comments

[gertvdijk]

@Ivan In that case, just install linux-image-extra-3.5.0-17-generic. The -18 kernel I'm using is pre-release I guess.

[Ivan]

I've just bought the NIC and tested it. It works just fine with bare 12.10 installation. The -18 kernel was installed as soon as I've ran update.