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Realtek rtl8192 wifi adapter problems

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  • Realtek rtl8192 wifi adapter problems

    I want to make this short and sweet, but I'm not sure it's possible. I think the best thing I can do is explain to you guys what I've done to try and resolve this issue.

    The issue is that the rtl8192cu driver that is included in the kernel is completely junk. It does not work at all. After googling for hours I found nothing but people saying that they couldnt get it to work. I did not find a single instance anywhere from anyone that made the claim that this driver worked for them. Matter of fact every single thread I read was people that had problems with it and never found a solution. Excuse my language, but there is no fucking way that this driver should be allowed in the kernel. If code of this quality is making it into the kernel then that is real bad news. It spells doom. It's really that bad.

    It is the single worst driver I've ever had to try to use for any operating system. period.

    Soooo, as it turns out realtek has an official driver on there web site that supports this hardware and it's even licensed GPLv2. Apparently it has no relation to the driver that is currently in kernel as it was developed independently by realtek themselves. Unfortunately realtek hasnt been keeping it updated to work with the newest kernels. But there is a guy on the web that managed to make it work for himself and posted his work on github. https://github.com/dz0ny/rt8192cu

    So Installed that driver. Now the problem that I'm having is iwconfig says that wlan0 has no wireless extensions. The driver compiled fine and modprobed fine but without wireless extensions I can't do anything with it.

    So when iwconfig says wlan0 no wireless extensions, what would be the next step in trying to troubleshoot? What should I do from here?

    This has got to be one of the worst hardware purchases I've ever made.

  • #2
    Just because the linux kernel has a driver for some hardware does not mean that it works in slightest little bit. And that's fucked up. I thought that's what the whole point of staging was about... This whole experience has made me think twice about the quality standards that I thought were applied to the kernel. Obviously quality standards don't apply at all to this driver. It clearly has never even been tested, otherwise it'd be obvious that it doesnt work. How many other drivers don't get quality standards applied to them?...

    I'm really frustrated. Something that should have been simply plug and play.
    Last edited by duby229; 03 December 2013, 03:57 AM.

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    • #3
      Sorry for the rant guys, I came here to ask for help, but when I started typing the rant just kinda poured out.

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      • #4
        Have you tried iw instead of iwconfig? Wireless extensions are the legacy interface which is possibly not supported by your kernel any more. Modern drivers use cfg80211, and the kernel emulates wireless extensions only if you enable CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT.

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        • #5
          I've tried it on 3.10 .11 .12 and .13. I know .10 and .11 used to work on my old adapter that is broken now. Plus the manufactrurer driver I'm using was written 3 years ago by realtek

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          • #6
            Originally posted by duby229 View Post
            Just because the linux kernel has a driver for some hardware does not mean that it works in slightest little bit. And that's fucked up. I thought that's what the whole point of staging was about... This whole experience has made me think twice about the quality standards that I thought were applied to the kernel. Obviously quality standards don't apply at all to this driver. It clearly has never even been tested, otherwise it'd be obvious that it doesnt work. How many other drivers don't get quality standards applied to them?...

            I'm really frustrated. Something that should have been simply plug and play.
            There's always the option of Windows.

            I have gotten Windows 8.1 to work with XP drivers for various hardware, well after the manufacturer decided to end all support for the device. That's more than 10 years of binary compatibility you're talking about.

            Similarly have coaxed Win98 drivers to run in Vista, that's close to another 10 years of binary compatibility, and for a completely different kernel architecture (DOS to NT) to boot.

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            • #7
              "Modern" as in anything since 2008 or so.

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              • #8
                Friends don't let friends use Realtek.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by deanjo View Post
                  Friends don't let friends use Realtek.
                  I oppose this claim with a handful of cheap, no-brand usb wifi adapters in my possession that use Realtek chipsets and work fine on both Windows and Linux.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sonadow View Post
                    I oppose this claim with a handful of cheap, no-brand usb wifi adapters in my possession that use Realtek chipsets and work fine on both Windows and Linux.
                    There are far better wifi adapters out there with better compatibility. Intel and ralink for example.

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