linux-drivers/
drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt76x0

MediaTek MT7610 and MT7630 (MT76x0) Wi-Fi adapters

A family of single-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi chips MediaTek shipped from the mid-2010s onward, found in inexpensive USB dongles (MT7610U/MT7630U) and a handful of mini-PCIe cards (MT7610E/MT7630E). They were widely used in budget travel adapters and embedded routers, and remain popular with OpenWrt hobbyists even though MediaTek wound down production around 2022.

keep-annotate conf=0.76 last_sold=2022 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=net category=networking-wireless
76%

recommendation

Worth keeping but flagging as aging hardware. The chips are no longer sold new and mainstream deployments are shrinking, but upstream maintainers were still landing fixes through 2024-2025 and OpenWrt users continued deploying MT7610U dongles in 2024. Until that long tail of cheap USB sticks finally disappears, removing the driver would needlessly break working hardware.

repository signals

17 files
4,035 source lines
24 commits, 5y
+193 / −71 lines added / removed, 5y
12 authors, 5y
monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 24 total · active in 19/61 months
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sources

  1. git.kernel.org

    Upstream is still touching this driver in 2024-2025; local git log for this directory shows substantive mt76x0-related fixes and refactors through 2025.

  2. cateee.net

    LKDDb shows ongoing mainline support for MT76x0U across current kernel series and a long list of supported USB dongles, indicating the driver still covers real shipping hardware.

  3. cateee.net

    LKDDb also tracks MT76x0E PCIe support, covering MT7610/MT7630 PCIe devices in mainline kernels.

  4. forum.openwrt.org

    OpenWrt users were still deploying MT7610U in 2024, which suggests the hardware remains in hobbyist/embedded use even if no longer mainstream.

  5. forum.openwrt.org

    An OpenWrt deployment thread from 2022 states MT7610U was no longer in production, supporting the view that this is legacy hardware rather than a 2025 new-design choice.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Real driver directory: Kconfig advertises MT76x0U USB and MT76x0E PCIe support. Upstream attention was established from local `exec_command` git history (`git -c safe.directory=... log -- drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt76x0`), which showed nontrivial touches in 2024-2025; cited kernel.org log URL is the canonical stable page corresponding to that history. `lei` was unavailable and web lore searches for mt76x0 removal terms did not surface a removal series, so there is no evidence to escalate to remove. Deployment evidence came from `web.search_query`: LKDDb pages show many supported retail dongles, and OpenWrt threads show the chipset still being used in 2024 but described as no longer in production in 2022. Net: legacy but still maintained, so keep the driver and annotate it as low-deployment aging hardware rather than deprecating or removing it.