Use Ubuntu 14.10.
Wifi driver: http://chrono.i0i0.me/firmware/usb8797_uapsta.bin
( Personal mirror of http://git.marvell.com/?p=mwifiex-firmware.git;a=blob;f=mrvl/usb8797_uapsta.bin
, to be wgettable. Apart from that, the original link does not seem to be correct, maybe corrupted.)
Put this file in '/lib/firmware/mrvl'. ( Create the directory if it doesn't exist already. )
Kernel 3.17.6 for better wifi stability and for the cover.