WLAN issues in Debian Squeeze RTL8188CE

tondalar · 12-20-2011, 09:01 PM

I've been having the hardest time getting the WiFi on my laptop working in Debian. The wireless card is RTL8188CE. I've tried everything I can think of to get this working and it's gotten me nowhere.

First, I went to Realtek's website and they only have the driver listed as compatible with krenel 2.6, but I've seen many posts saying it works fine with 3.0. However, I can't compile the darn thing. Whenever I try to, I get the following error message:

Code:

turtle@mobile-tux:~/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011$ make >> out.txt
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c: In function ‘_rtl_init_mac80211’:
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c:320: error: ‘IEEE80211_HW_CONNECTION_MONITOR’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c:320: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c:320: error: for each function it appears in.)
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c: In function ‘rtl_watchdog_wq_callback’:
/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.c:1258: error: implicit declaration of function ‘ieee80211_connection_loss’
make[4]: *** [/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011/base.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/home/turtle/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_linux_mac80211_0004.0816.2011] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

Following the advice of a friend, I installed this .deb: http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/firmware-realtek

The system still does not recognize the card (it will appear in lspci, but not under ifconfig. Running iwconfig however will now show a "pan0" interface that was not there before).

Continuing to troubleshoot I then followed the directions here: http://wiki.debian.org/rtl819x#Wheezy
I now have a rtl8192 module (which is what I've seen many people saying is the correct module for this card) available, however whenever I load it - I still have no wlan0 interface or such. The only module given from those directions that causes any form of system response is loading the rtl8192u_usb module and that causes Debian to show a "Kernel error" message.

I'm using this laptop for school, and I'd love to be using Debian on it before anything else. Any suggestions?

EDIT: I even tried using ndiswrapper on the latest Windows driver and no luck. :\

cynwulf · 12-21-2011, 10:07 AM

Thread at the Debian Forums: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=64140

The OP solved it apparently, the last post refers to the proprietary driver - best as a last resort.

tondalar · 12-22-2011, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by caravel

Thread at the Debian Forums: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=64140

The OP solved it apparently, the last post refers to the proprietary driver - best as a last resort.

Thanks for the link. I followed the steps and now at least have the rtl8192ce module available, but still no functioning wifi. The output of dmesg | tail after loading the module is this:

Code:

[  476.207744] rtl8192ce:rtl92c_init_sw_vars():<0-0> Failed to request firmware!
[  476.207748] rtlwifi:rtl_pci_probe():<0-0> Can't init_sw_vars.
[  476.207764] rtl8192ce 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A disabled

I know that's usually due to missing firmware but I have the appropriate firmware in /lib/firmware/rtlwifi:

Code:

turtle@tux-deb:/lib/firmware/rtlwifi$ ls
rtlwifi_rtl8192cfw.bin  rtlwifi_rtl8192cufw.bin  rtlwifi_rtl8192sefw.bin

So I'm a bit confused now. Any suggestions?

cynwulf · 12-23-2011, 05:18 AM

I take it you already installed the kernel from backports?

You also need to install firmware-realtek from backports. I would install it, as you said earlier you installed the .deb from wheezy? But clearly the kernel module is not finding firmware.

Code:

aptitude -t squeeze-backports install firmware-realtek

Code:

modprobe -r rtl8192ce && modprobe rtl8192ce

You should then be able to configure the interface.

oxide23 · 02-29-2012, 12:01 PM

what is "kernel from backports" and how is that installed? what is the name of the package? thank you