PAU0A AC600 Dual Band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wireless AC USB Adapter - Win 7/8/10/11, Zorin, Mint, Ubuntu, MX Linux, Manjaro, Fedora, Rocky, Kali Linux and Raspbian

Are you tired of slow internet speeds and poor connectivity on your desktop or laptop? Look no further than the Panda Wireless® PAU0A AC600 Dual Band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wireless AC USB Adapter. Upon receiving the product, I was impressed with its compact size and easy-to-use design. Installation was a breeze - simply plug the adapter into your USB port and follow the quick setup guide. In just a few minutes, I was up and running with lightning-fast internet speeds and improved connectivity. The adapter's dual-band technology is a game-changer, allowing for seamless switching between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands depending on your internet needs. Whether you're streaming movies, gaming, or just browsing the web, the PAU0A AC600 delivers reliable and fast performance every time. In addition to its impressive performance, the adapter also boasts excellent range. Even when I was several rooms away from my router, I experienced little to no lag or drop in internet speed. This is especially impressive given the compact size of the adapter. Overall, I would highly recommend the Panda Wireless® PAU0A AC600 Dual Band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wireless AC USB Adapter to anyone looking to improve their internet speeds and connectivity on their desktop or laptop. Its compact size, dual-band technology, and excellent range make it a top-performing and reliable choice.

Works great with linux mint, no issues with signal even when 20 feet away somehow.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS works out of the box, plug and play, no driver build needed. Immediately recognized within seconds could connect. Highly recommend...will take some time on quality and stability and repost but using on second floor of house, RAX29 Nighthawk is on first floor. 80 Mb/sec download could be better but this is likely ranging and power issue. Homelab PC without wifi built in so I just wanted to add wifi usb without hassle. The Panda has Mediatek chipset...important! Most of the other USB Wifi that work / don't work on Linux need driver building which is ok but not for novice to try and also chipset implementation and driver release which is so hit and miss because Realtek chipset is terrible. No development on this. Commits on Github and although fine driver...meh...I just want the thing to work and not go down the rabbit hole to config. I sent back two TP-Link to get here.

Works on my raspberry pi zero 2 w. It is plug and play and I did not have to install any drivers. I am on os version bookworm. I used the Raspberry Pi Imager from the raspberry pi website which asked me for the wifi password while writing to the sd card. Once I booted my pi and plugged this wifi adapter. I ran nmcli to see the devices. I saw wlan0 was the default and my wifi adapter was wlan1 Then I ran nmcli con show and saw preconfigured was assigned to wlan0. This is where the credentials are stored, not sure. To change to wlan1, run nmcli connection modify preconfigured connection.interface-name wlan1 and then run sudo reboot to restart and when your pi boots up, it should use the wifi adapter.

Best news is, the Panda Wireless® PAU0A AC600 arrived the next day. Bad news is, no instructions on installing on a Linux system. Guess they just assume we all know what we are doing. Tried the plug and play. Maybe it worked. Let me explain. Looks like there is a light on the Panda Wireless. Don’t know. No light came on. So I searched the Internet for Instructions. Nothing much on the Panda website. Does have a download for the driver. A set of instructions but the terminal comes back with files and directories do not exist lines. Tried the CD that was no help. It refused to open. Then onto the Internet again. Found some instructions along the lines of plug and play. Instructions said lower right, choose network. Mine is on the top right. Pull down for the battery, sound, power, restart, and power down. Which also has a WIFI option that now shows (2). Clicked on that and my WIFI network is now listed twice. Went over to settings where is now shows my laptop adapter and the MediaTek WIFI which is the Panda. Now I can switch between the 2. I opened a WIFI speed test. On both it hit a 1 time high of 90Mbps and usually between 10-20Mbps. Really poor. Tried 4 different browsers. All the same results. Upload is 10-20Mbps. I also tried my phone which hit a consistent 90Mbps. So what’s the problem with the speed? Not sure. The problem I was facing is with a Lenovo IdeaPad with the AMD Ryzen™ 7 3700U with Radeon™ Vega Mobile Gfx. It kept on disconnecting and I had to open WIFI and reconnect. You can find info on WIFI driver updates for other processors, but AMD does not offer a driver for Linux. Keep that in mind when ordering a new laptop. The good news is the Panda does work. The speed on the laptop is something internal. Good enough for what I do with a few hang ups. WIFI lingers between starting fast and at times hangs up. I am sure it is the laptop. The Panda appears fine. I would buy it again. The PAU0A AC600 is compact and does not stick out of the side much more than the mouse USB. Which is nice. After a few hours the Panda is not disconnecting every few minutes like the Lenovo did. I call that a success.

When I received the package I inserted the CD which came with the dongle, and nothing. I clicked on a bunch of launch and .exe files within my file manager and nothing happened. I then turned to the printed install instructions which were dated 2017 and I was terribly confused and uncertain what to do. I then scoured the user manual and discovered that it told me, as an Ubuntu User, to consult my Linux manual. I then read other reviews and how others with more Linux knowledge than me used their terminals to enter commands to download and install the correct drivers and get the dongle to talk to Linux. I tried entering a few commands but got nowhere. I then watched a couple dated youtube videos and was just as lost. Finally, I emailed the company directly and told them I use the latest version of Ubuntu, at the time: 22.04.4 LTS, and gave them a description of my 7 year old computer's configuration including processor, RAM, and memory, and within a very short span of time I received a reply that read, "The Panda PAU0A adapter works out of the box on Ubuntu 22.04 and you don't need to install any driver for it. Just insert Panda into a good USB port on your computer, click the wireless icon in the task bar, select your network and enter your network password to connect Panda to your network." I did exactly that and voila, it worked like a charm. I wrote Panda back and urged them to include a cheap 2024 insert in their packaging which states exactly that for Ubuntu and other machines with the latest versions installed which truly allow for plug-n-play without having to resort to the Terminal and a bunch of command lines in esoteric Linux language. The speed and range are good to very good, and for the price, it's a great value.

On Linux Mint, it connects to WIFI but does not transmit data. It does not connect directly to the router either (with cable). I use a CHUWI laptop whose chipset does not connect to WIFI with Linux but works with Windows.

The Panda PAU0A is a budget-friendly Wi-Fi adapter that supports monitor mode and packet injection, making it a decent entry-level tool for Linux users or beginners in wireless security. However, it suffers from weak driver support, inconsistent performance during packet injection, and limited range compared to more established alternatives. Pros: • Supports monitor mode and packet injection (on Linux, especially Kali). • Plug-and-play compatibility with most Linux distros. • Affordable and compact. • Dual-band (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz) support. Cons: • Inconsistent or unreliable packet injection performance. • Spotty driver support for some distros or kernel versions. • Poor signal range and weak antenna compared to larger Alfa models. • No official driver support for macOS. I’ve used this adapter extensively and noticed that on new kernel versions or without manual driver tweaks, packet injection fails intermittently which is a pretty huge deal considering on of the only things this adapter has going for it is that it can preform packet injection. The range is also quite bad, underperforming most adapters built into devices already. The range gets even worse kn signal dense environments or simply when there are a lot of walls to traverse. I’ve also noticed that it slightly overheats after prolonged use but not too big of an issue. Who it’s for: • Beginners in wireless security looking for a cheap way to learn the basics • Linux users who want an affordable backup/secondary adapter • Not advanced users needing consistent and or reliable injection or long-range performance. If you want another option from Panda, there’s the Panda PAU09. It features better range and better injection reliability. It’s also a similar price. But if you want a more pricey option but significantly better performance, I would highly recommend the Alfa AWUS036NHA. It beats this adapter in nearly every aspect including very reliable injection and excellent range. If you still want this adapter, here are a few tips: • Update your kernel and drivers manually if injection fails • Use an external powered USB hub to prevent brownouts • Consider the Alfa AWUS036NHA or AWUS036ACH if you’re serious about wireless pen testing or need strong signal strength and stability