Realtek RTL8822BE Support Coming To Linux 4.14

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Realtek RTL8822BE Support Coming To Linux 4.14

For those with a system containing the new Realtek RTL8822BE wireless chipset, initial support for it will be found with the upcoming Linux 4.14 LTS kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Realtek-RTL8822BE

[nazar-pc]

Very happy for users of those adapters. I'm having 8814au and available third-party drivers only work fine with 4.9 kernel and doesn't work very well. Another adapter I had was MT7612u, same story.
To be fair, drivers for those adapters are very buggy for Windows too (try to plug in 2 adapters of the same model and wonderful things happen).

[Michael_S]

As far as I know, there are some 802.11n wireless devices that can be run with completely free software drivers, but everything with 802.11ac requires proprietary firmware.

Am I right? Is there anything 802.11ac available that doesn't require proprietary firmware?

[starshipeleven]

As far as I know, there are some 802.11n wireless devices that can be run with completely free software drivers, but everything with 802.11ac requires proprietary firmware.

Am I right? Is there anything 802.11ac available that doesn't require proprietary firmware?

Afaik yes, you are right.

But even with a firmware blob, Qualcomm/Atheros stuff allows to be placed in AP mode (needed if you want to use your card/dongle to create a wifi network for other devices), and also should support mesh wifi networks (kinda peer to peer wifi redundant networks) just like their wifi n drivers. So we aren't losing much there.

Meanwhile there are asses like Broadcom where they provide a precompiled binary + opensource shim (ala NVIDIA driver) that will only work on x86/x86_64 systems (and does offer only client mode), or Intel stuff that has a firmware and again offers only client mode.

I don't know about this realtek chip, Realtek has always been a mixed bag, something was good and something was crap. Also their ethernet controllers are like this.

[franglais125]

Intel stuff that has a firmware and again offers only client mode.

I use my intel wifi card as an AP everyday to create my own network. I did this with both my 1030N and AC 7260.

[starshipeleven]

I use my intel wifi card as an AP everyday to create my own network. I did this with both my 1030N and AC 7260.

Interesting, thanks. It seems they enabled AP mode with 2.4 GHz on newer cards ("newer" in a relative sense anyway). https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/...rivers/iwlwifi

[Michael_S]

Afaik yes, you are right.

But even with a firmware blob, Qualcomm/Atheros stuff allows to be placed in AP mode (needed if you want to use your card/dongle to create a wifi network for other devices), and also should support mesh wifi networks (kinda peer to peer wifi redundant networks) just like their wifi n drivers. So we aren't losing much there.

Meanwhile there are asses like Broadcom where they provide a precompiled binary + opensource shim (ala NVIDIA driver) that will only work on x86/x86_64 systems (and does offer only client mode), or Intel stuff that has a firmware and again offers only client mode.

I don't know about this realtek chip, Realtek has always been a mixed bag, something was good and something was crap. Also their ethernet controllers are like this.

Thanks. I was less focused on using the cards in AP mode and more on security and quality. When something goes wrong with your driver + firmware wireless card, you can only juggle firmware blobs and hope something works. (Unless I suppose you have incredible skill and can reverse engineer the firmware.) With a fully open driver, you can start by checking the commit logs for descriptions of changes and if it comes to it start reading code and debugging yourself if things go wrong.

My PCI-E Intel 7260 wireless card has been rock solid for years, but for the past month it just drops connections at random and the only fix is restarting the whole damn box.

Two other wireless gadgets started malfunctioning intermittently at about the same time, which would seem to indicate that there's a new source of interference somewhere or my wireless access point is going bad. But half a dozen other wireless devices in the house are still rock solid.

I've spent so much time chasing down wifi signal phantoms over the past ten years that I'm just about to give up and pay an electrician to run Cat6 through all the places I can't manage myself.

[starshipeleven]

Thanks. I was less focused on using the cards in AP mode and more on security and quality. When something goes wrong with your driver + firmware wireless card, you can only juggle firmware blobs and hope something works. (Unless I suppose you have incredible skill and can reverse engineer the firmware.) With a fully open driver, you can start by checking the commit logs for descriptions of changes and if it comes to it start reading code and debugging yourself if things go wrong.

True to an extent, but it's also true that many open drivers (like say the older Atheros wifi one) are full of "magic numbers" so what you can do is still limited.

Two other wireless gadgets started malfunctioning intermittently at about the same time, which would seem to indicate that there's a new source of interference somewhere or my wireless access point is going bad. But half a dozen other wireless devices in the house are still rock solid.

Heh, fixing wifi issues is always fun and games.

Many modern devices spam noise in the 2.4 Ghz frequency in spikes depending on their activity, anything with a transformer can be an issue.

Having an EM detector like a ghost seeker would probably help finding the interference source.
Also tinfoil can help, you can make temporary EM shielding around your non-wifi devices to troubleshoot the issues. EM radiations are like light, they go in a straight line, so "shadow shields" (a tinfoil wall between you and the radiation source) also work.

USB3.0 devices are on the list too https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423604,00.asp

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.pdf

Note that while router manufacturers claim to have shielded their stuff, many modern client devices may not have this shielding,

some older like this 2013 macbook https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

some high end modern routers https://community.linksys.com/t5/Wir...CS/td-p/995637

some laptops in 2015 https://superuser.com/questions/9642...r-pendrive-con

And the Surface Pro 4 http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads...usb-3-0.22008/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro4-surfnetwork/wifi-and-usb30-peripheral-issue-on-surface-pro4/a532fab4-b41f-4f8c-a5bf-0bd559b49d74?auth=1

[starshipeleven]

aaand Vbullettin disapproves my post for Michael_S above.

[Tomin]

Makes me wonder when (if ever...) rtl8812au gets to upstream. I have one of those.