USB Wireless Adapter recognized by `lsusb` but not by `ifconfig` on Linux

Question

I am experiencing some issues with an Wireless Adapter. Long story short:

• I have a USB Wireless Adapter: AWUS036ACH (chipset: RTL8812AU)
• drivers are up to date: (i.e., apt-get install realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms)
• the card is recognized by lsusb (i.e., both in VirtualBox and USB live boot)
• the card is not listed by ifconfig -a

Here is the output of some of the commands I tried:

• uname -r:

  4.14.0-kali1-amd64
  

• lsusb:

  Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8812 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8812AU 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WLAN Adapter
  Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
  Bus 002 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
  Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
  

• ifconfig -a:

  eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
  # more details removed
  lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
  # more details removed
  

• apt-get install realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms:

  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree       
  Reading state information... Done
  realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms is already the newest version (5.1.5~20171206-0kali1).
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  

Additional information:

• the network adapter in VirtualBox is set to NAT, however this may not be relevant because the same issue occurs when I do a live boot
• the cards works on Windows and it is supported by Kali too
• just to make sure, I also tried apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade

Do you have any ideas what I am missing? Thank you.

---

Edit:

• I installed the driver using the dkms as described in the aircrack-ng repository and it worked. Note: If you run the installation in VirtualBox, the USB controller must be set to xHCI (3.0).
• @sawdust suggested the following link on Kali forums which may be very helpful.