To find the correct driver for the BC-96ac, you must look "under the hood" at the chipset. These adapters almost exclusively use Realtek chipsets.
Common Chipsets Used:
How to confirm your specific chipset:
If the manufacturer no longer exists, use: bc-96ac driver
Warning: Avoid "driver downloader" pop-ups. Only download from *.inf or official .exe sources.
Older BC-96AC adapters may work with the Wireless USB Adapter Driver for Mac from Chipset. However, for macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and newer, native drivers are rare. Use a Windows virtual machine or replace the adapter.
For Ubuntu 20.04+, the easiest method is using the rtl8821ce driver from the community: To find the correct driver for the BC-96ac,
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git dkms build-essential
git clone https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce.git
cd rtl8821ce
sudo ./dkms-install.sh
Reboot. Wi-Fi should now appear.
For Ubuntu 22.04+, you may need a newer fork:
git clone https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8812au.git
cd rtl8812au
sudo make dkms_install
bc96-net — bring up network
Example PPP chat:
Call pppd with: pppd call bc96-connect /dev/ttyBC96 115200 noauth defaultroute usepeerdns
If you’re on Windows and lost the driver, grab it from: How to confirm your specific chipset: