Intel Compute Stick has full implementation of USB 3.0 port. The USB 3.0 port on the Intel Compute Stick has theoretical capability of transferring data up to 5gbps. The Wi-Fi network speed of the Compute Stick is slow. To take the maximum advantage of the USB 3.0 port on Compute Stick, we are going to use it for [7 Port USB HUB + Ethernet Adapter] Unitek USB 3.0 Hub 6-Port + 1 Charging Port +1 Gbps Ethernet Adapter, 36W Powered USB Data Hub. In this tutorial, you will learn to setup Unitek’s USB 3.0 based Gigabit Ethernet NIC card on the Intel Compute stick.

Pre-requirements

Intel Compute Stick running Ubuntu Operating System

Why did we pick the Unitek USB 3.0 Hub 6-Port with 1Gbps Ethernet Adapter?

This device offers the following great features:

• Comes with 36 Watt power adapter, it has enough juice to have up to 7 USB powered external hard drives (e.g. WD 1TB USB 3.0 drive)
• Adds 6 more USB 3.0 Ports to the Compute Stick, so you can hook up more devices to it
• Provides built-in 1Gbps Ethernet adapter
• Supports Linux Operating System, provided device drivers, (with a small modification, I was able to compile and install the driver on Compute Stick running Ubuntu 16.10 Operating system

Setup used for this tutorial

Compute Stick Model: STK1A32SC
Date of Manufacturing: 07/2016
Operating System: Ubuntu 16.10
External Device: Unitek USB 3.0 Hub 6-Port with 1Gbps Ethernet Adapter (Price USD $35)

Download Linux Device Driver

Unitek’s Official Link: http://unitek-products.com/administrator/components/com_zdcode/upload/Realtek/RTL8153/Linux.zip

Download and Unarchive RTL8153 Device Driver Using the Below Commands

wget http://unitek-products.com/administrator/components/com_zdcode/upload/Realtek/RTL8153/Linux.zip
unzip Linux.zip
cd Linux/
tar xvjf 0010-r8152.53-2.10.0.tar.bz2

Compile and Install Driver

Use the below two commands to install the device driver: 

make
make install

Note* – The make command compiles the driver C program, if you receive an ‘BMCR_SPEED10’ undeclared error as I did as shown below, you will need to replace the r8152.c file with this modified version I made that declares the BMCR_SPEED10 macro to 0 in the C preprocessing flags. Modified file r8152.c link. Re-run the make command, it will compile the device driver successfully and next run the make install command afterwards.

If the setup is successful you will see no errors and running the if config command will show the ethernet interface information along with WiFi network interface information. To check more information about the ethernet card run the following command:
sudo lshw -class network