Realtek 802.11ax WiFi Driver "rtw89" Queued Ahead Of Linux 5.16

[moriel5]

My experience with Realtek wifi chips was the opposite.

They work on Windows always but not so great.

On Linux OOB most of those Realtek wifi chips doesn't even work. You have to use out of tree drivers+ make adjustments to make it usable.

Linux users should priotirize Intel and Qualcomm/Atheros chips imo, if that is an option.

Realtek wifi is just nothing but pain.

I didn't say they don't work at all on Windows, just that the stability is far worse than on Linux (at best, they are only semi-stable).
Nor did I say that they work OOTB on Linux, I was merely referring to after it is installed.

Realtek WiFi on Linux, takes some time to be brought up on Linux (no thanks to Realtek themselves, it is volunteers such as lwfinger that fix Realtek's garbage code), however over time become reliable (though underperforming). Windows, on the other hand doesn't benefit from that, so any bugs on Windows either stay the same or get worse, never better.

[moriel5]

I prefer Intel Wi-Fi as it is the most stable and works. Sadly the only laptop I have with Intel Wi-Fi is dead...

I abhor Broadcom Wi-Fi as none of the drivers work.
The open-source one stalls when uploading a bit too much, and the proprietary one doesn't play well with real-time kernels and often fails to connect to a hidden network (and/or takes too long) which causes KDE to think that the password is wrong.

I personally had never had any issues with the proprietary Broadcom drivers on Solus, and our wireless networks are hidden, and with the open source driver (again, on Solus), I did not have stalling issues, however throughput was low.

[Spacefish]

Currently i use Intel AX210s, but their firmware embeeded regulatory DB is out of date and you can´t override it. So here in germany WiFi 6E is not possible with it, although the regulatory body assigned the frequencies some months ago.

I am courious if Huawei / Hisilicon will release any stand-alone client chip which can be integrated onto an M.2 card or inside an USB-Dongle.. They have the Gigahome W650 SOC which has a very good 802.11ax Implementation for a very low price. They also have a similar MAC/PHY integrated into their smartphone SOCs, however no stand-alone chip as of today.. They still use Intel Cards in their own Matebook series..

[Leopard]

I'm curious, since I have been hearing (inconsistent) reports about Realtek's Wireless-AX cards having fewer issues than their predecessors (OS-agnostic, since generally Windows users have it worse than Linux users with Realtek, stability-wise), is there any truth to this?

My experience with Realtek wifi chips was the opposite.

They work on Windows always but not so great.

On Linux OOB most of those Realtek wifi chips doesn't even work. You have to use out of tree drivers+ make adjustments to make it usable.

Linux users should priotirize Intel and Qualcomm/Atheros chips imo, if that is an option.

Realtek wifi is just nothing but pain.

[Old Nobody]

Do you prefer Intel Wi-Fi or Realtec Wi-Fi or Atheros Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi from some other manufacturer?
And why?

It depends.
Qualcomm/Atheros is pretty good (hardware and Linux support), but is used primary in Access Points and barely available in "normal" computers.
Realtek is a mixed bag: While they care for in-kernel Linux support for some of their devices, they completely don't for others.
Intel has good hardware and Linux support, but the required firmware is notorious to be unstable. Additionally Intel does not allow you to set up a AP on 5 GHz.
Currently I'd go for Mediatek. But only the newer chips, and with a recent kernel. They started at total crap, but have put a lot of effort into their Linux support in the last years.

[tildearrow]

Do you prefer Intel Wi-Fi or Realtec Wi-Fi or Atheros Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi from some other manufacturer?
And why?

I prefer Intel Wi-Fi as it is the most stable and works. Sadly the only laptop I have with Intel Wi-Fi is dead...

I abhor Broadcom Wi-Fi as none of the drivers work.
The open-source one stalls when uploading a bit too much, and the proprietary one doesn't play well with real-time kernels and often fails to connect to a hidden network (and/or takes too long) which causes KDE to think that the password is wrong.

[moriel5]

Realtek's PCIe and USB driver teams are literally in different countries. Very different parts of the company. That's why support for PCIe chips is generally ok, while drivers for USB devices are the mess you've described.

Actually, many of these cards are actually SDIO modules planted on both M.2 cards and USB modules, from what I could see, and support is abysmal, regardless of PCIe or USB (it could be due to their SDIO support being horrible).

Realtek audio is generally okay, even on USB, while Realtek Ethernet is stable... but underperforming, regardless of the connector/protocol (though I have been getting a few reports that things have been improving on that front).

[moriel5]

I'm curious, since I have been hearing (inconsistent) reports about Realtek's Wireless-AX cards having fewer issues than their predecessors (OS-agnostic, since generally Windows users have it worse than Linux users with Realtek, stability-wise), is there any truth to this?

[cbxbiker61]

Great to see another AX wifi module added to the kernel!

I'm currently using this out of tree driver with great success in conjunction with kernel 5.14.x. It seems to behave/perform as well as the Intel drivers for me. That's high praise since I consider the Intel wifi drivers the gold standard on Linux.

https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw89

[Gusar]

Gusar Imagine if there was some kind of software that allows developers to work together on a codebase in different "branches" and merge those into one fully operational driver stack, once everyone involved is happy with the results. It would be a game changer :P

It's not about code management, but about corporate culture. Some companies haven't yet figured out the open source development model. It's not just about engineering, it has to be part of the culture all the way from the top execs. This simply doesn't exist in the Realtek branch that does USB. And it's not something simple that can change overnight.