Linux 6.7 Staging Drops The QLGE Ethernet & rtl8192u WiFi Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.7 Staging Drops The QLGE Ethernet & rtl8192u WiFi Drivers

The staging changes for Linux 6.7 are on the heavier side in part due to many new contributors from Outreachy mailing in their first kernel patches with various minor fixes. But staging is also lightened up a bit by dropping a wired Ethernet and wireless driver as part of the ongoing kernel effort to remove unused and old WiFi drivers...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.7-Staging

[SofS]

Instead of a cleanup, it looks more like a message that staging needs commitment despite being staging. To avoid it being treated as a dumping ground. This way these users have to resort to out of tree modules and will know exactly with whom to complain (or there will be silence) until the proper driver is mainlined.

[edwaleni]

Where is Marvell? Fighting the Kree or updating their drivers? Will we see same for Aquantia as well? They brought 10GBASE-T to the masses.

[dc740]

ohhh... no...

I'm actually using RTL8192U on my wife's laptop (on a tp-link TL-WN822N) because the onboard wifi driver is broken and stops responding every now and then until you restart the thing. (I can't recall the broken wifi module. but it's not the 8192!)

I'll have to get a new one (or replace the one from the laptop, but I think Lenovo whitelists the modules in the BIOS so you can't replace them)

[CommunityMember]

Where is Marvell? Fighting the Kree or updating their drivers? Will we see same for Aquantia as well? They brought 10GBASE-T to the masses.

Qlogic was acquired by Cavium in 2016, and Cavium was acquired by Marvell in 2018. Along the way job cuts, and product line discontinuance happened. Any engineers that were working on the Qlogic ethernet cards and are still at the new company have long been reassigned to newer and current generation products and support.

For now the Aquantia chips appear to still be available, and Marvell engineers have recently provided patches, so, for now, those drivers are being maintained (unlike the qlge driver).

[CommunityMember]

I'll have to get a new one (or replace the one from the laptop, but I think Lenovo whitelists the modules in the BIOS so you can't replace them)

Or replace the laptop? There used to be a community that provided lenovo bios updates to whitelist alternative wifi modules (typically you went that way because you wanted a newer wifi chipset as you could typically find a lenovo branded module if you just wanted a one-to-one replacement). I have no idea if that community is still active, but it may be something to look for.

[chromer]

Linux Kernel is moving to be bleeding edge, and this will hurt end-users...

[caligula]

ohhh... no...

I'm actually using RTL8192U on my wife's laptop (on a tp-link TL-WN822N) because the onboard wifi driver is broken and stops responding every now and then until you restart the thing. (I can't recall the broken wifi module. but it's not the 8192!)

They have a horrible naming convention. RTL8185 and RTL8187 - RTL8192 are wifi, RTL8181 and RTL8186 are SoC, RTL8168 & RTL8169 are ethernet.

[TemplarGR]

ohhh... no...

I'm actually using RTL8192U on my wife's laptop (on a tp-link TL-WN822N) because the onboard wifi driver is broken and stops responding every now and then until you restart the thing. (I can't recall the broken wifi module. but it's not the 8192!)

I'll have to get a new one (or replace the one from the laptop, but I think Lenovo whitelists the modules in the BIOS so you can't replace them)

Or simply stay on Linux 6.6.x ..... It is not that hard, it is not like that laptop needs cutting edge kernels....

PS: Or just get a new wifi usb adaptor....

[stormcrow]

Or simply stay on Linux 6.6.x ..... It is not that hard, it is not like that laptop needs cutting edge kernels....

PS: Or just get a new wifi usb adaptor....

Or go look to see if it really is an rtl-8192u... cuz the article says this driver has been broken since 2016... and I can confirm that as I have a couple of those craptastic USB dongles with that specific chipset in storage that never worked right in Linux. Even though I have them, I don't care if this driver gets tossed. It was crap then, it's broken now. Good riddance. I just need to remember to toss them out next time I see them. They're in the bottom of some box, I'm sure. I never tossed them cuz I hoped some day they might be useful, by accident because they were brain dead and 'deaf' (horrible reception) in Windows too.