I tried Manjaro MATE and it doesn’t disconnect and then reconnect, but still has very poor range. So something is wrong. In Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS i tried something like this:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential git
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
cd rtlwifi_new
make
sudo make install
sudo reboot
It works, still with very bad range, but when I update it breaks :’(
I’m not sure if it works in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS though, but i’ll try it.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2261702
But I guess it’s the pain of realtek hardware and drivers