i386 / x86_64
 

Just to let people know, a friend of mine installed 32-bit fedora 11 on his 64-bit Turion machine (Toshiba Satellite) and after recompiling the mainline kernel (kernel.org) (and including the rtl8192e driver, of course) the wireless seems to be working flawlessly. I haven't had a chance to try it with WPA/2, but unencrypted and WEP seem to work just fine.

Perhaps until the 64-bit mystery is solved, this can be a temporary respite for those among us burdened with the RealTek cards. I hope I don't sound like a quitter ;)

Realtek does support GNU/Linux

I sent an email to them, requesting a link to the bin [ firmware ] for the 8192 usb wireless card, they sent an attached zip with the drivers for it.

I posting them on my website:

http://jaqui-greenlees.net/drivers.html

so the sources in the archive are direct from the chipset manufacturer. :)

just give it a few for the zip to finish uploading.

Would this firmware be for 64 bit systems, by any chance?

I'm at work right now (I work on the water) and they're asking me to ride over until Friday, when my relief will be here. I'm going to try to get this working again then.

RealTek Drivers
 

You can also get drivers direct from the RealTek site

For RTL8192U IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN Controller with USB 2.0 Interface
Or RTL8192E IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN Controller with PCI-Express Interface

Go to: http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/p...Level=6&Conn=5

For RTL8192SE Single-Chip IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2T2R WLAN Controller with PCI Express Interface
Or RTL8192SU Single-Chip IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2T2R WLAN Controller with USB 2.0 Interface

Go to: http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/p...Level=5&Conn=4

But I have still been unable to get my WLAN working with Ubuntu 9.10 64bit, looking at this thread it may be that they will only work with a 32bit OS, I guess that I would need to invest more time than I currently have to pursue this further so for now I am moving on with VirtualBox and a 32bit Ubuntu 9.10 (Since AMD-V has been crippled in my Toshiba P505D, an issue that I am taking up with Toshiba)

So I have a TRENDnet TEW-649UB usb adapter that also uses the Realtek 8192 chipset/driver. I managed to get this device working pretty well with Xubuntu 9.10 32-bit in virtual box.

To get the device working in 32bit mode, I performed the following steps:
-Downloaded the file WNUL_linux.tar.gz from WNU(L) Driver version 3.0810.
There is also a "WNU Driver version 3.0902" there as well, but it appears to be old and in fact didn't work for me, so be sure to get 3.0810.

The direct download link is ftp://ftp.a-link.com/wnul/WNUL_linux.tar.gz
After unpacking WNUL_linux.tar.gz, under the firmware folder, I copied the directory "RTL8192SU" to /lib/firmware/

Upon starting wicd or bringing up wlan0 or whatever, dmesg reports:
Unfortunately, this driver/firmware hard locks my native 64 bit environment (gentoo) which is why I've had to resort to running it in a 32 bit virtual machine. Also, on Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit under virtual box, it appears to kind of work. It doesn't hard lock and the connection light on the usb device lights up, but dmesg shows a ton of weird errors and wicd is unable to actually find any wireless networks, so it appears that 64 bit support is a no go for now at least on kernel 2.6.31

Update: I was able to get the firmware to load correctly under a 64 bit 2.6.32 kernel (or more specifically, The Zen Kernel) So that looks promising for 64 bit support

WLAN works as Virual Guest
 

Thannks for the update, I have not tried adding the drivers under VirtualBox, in my case, my host is Windows 7 and the guest is Ubuntu 9.10 32bit, attached using NAT. Everything works just fine using the drivers provided. Unfortunately I can't run a 64bit guest because Toshiba crippled AMD-V on the P505D but my long term aim is still to ditch Windows. Unfortunately that will have to wait until I have time to get all the components of my machine working when booting directly into Ubuntu 64bit.

Just a 'heads up'
 

I have wireless working with wp2 on debian 5.0.3 'lenny' x86 with Knetworkmanager and a custom 2.6.32-rc5 kernel with all three 8192 references in 'staging drivers' modularly installed... (built as modules) I added the firmware to /lib/firmware/`uname -r`/RTL8192E...

I'm going to try to tinker with the 64 bit more later...

update: Compiled new kernel from kernel.org 2.6.32 for debian 64 bit and am having the same issues when the firmware is requested. If I rename the firmware, the kernel loads and functions fine. I tried using firmware from the 64 bit version of the RTL8192SE driver after renaming to boot.img... No joy... The only file I'm having issues with is the boot.img file. The data.img and main.img don't cause any problems. I downloaded the windows7 driver from realtek for the 8192E but the firmware file (what I speculated it was) doesn't work with the staging driver.

Again...
 

I tried installing the driver for the RTL8192SE by modifying the Makefile like suggested and make && make install goes fine...

The device is still not functioning in my 64 bit debian lenny system.

#dmesg

[ 22.534358] ===>rtl8192_SetWirelessMode(), wireless_mode:0x8, support_mode:0x16
[ 22.534416] <===rtl8192_SetWirelessMode(), wireless_mode:10, bEnableHT = 1
[ 22.534498] rtl819xE 0000:02:00.0: firmware: requesting RTL8192E/boot.img
[ 22.621355] rtl819xE 0000:02:00.0: firmware: requesting RTL8192E/main.img
[ 22.692037] rtl819xE 0000:02:00.0: firmware: requesting RTL8192E/data.img
[ 22.753977] rtl819xE:====>error=====dwRegRead: 7f1, WriteData: 27
[ 22.753979]
[ 22.753982] rtl819xE:PHY_RF8256_Config():Check Radio[0] Fail!!
[ 22.753983]
[ 22.753985] rtl819xE:PHY Initialization failed
[ 22.753986]
[ 22.753988] rtl819xE:RF Config failed
[ 22.753989]
[ 22.753992] rtl819xE:ERR!!! _rtl8192_up(): initialization is failed!
[ 22.753993]
[ 24.820788] rtl819xE:Setting SW wep key

Obviously, I'm using the firmware that has been working in a 32-bit userland and has consistantly locked up my machine when it is used with the staging driver from kernel 2.6.32-rc5 and up...

How can we go about getting firmware for a 64-bit userland?

RTL8192E Linux driver
 

I sent an email to RealTek asking about a 64bit driver for Linux and received the response below which contained attached file rtl8192e_linux_2.6.0011.1029.2009.tar.gz I was unable to attach the file to this post as it is 1,789KB but would be happy to email it on request. I plan to try it out in a couple of days.

from kidman <kidman@realtek.com>
to Karl <find.karl@gmail.com>,
Wlanfae <wlanfae@realtek.com>
date Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 8:28 PM
subject RE: Linux drivers for the RTL8192E
mailed-by realtek.com

hide details 8:28 PM (2 hours ago)

Dear Karl,

Please find the attachment for the RTL8192E Linux driver.
If there’s any problem, please feel free to let us know.

Thanks.
Regards,
Kidman

I tried the new driver in Ubuntu 9.10 AMD64 but could not get the RTL8912 up.
I do see a WLAN but have been unable to get it up... may be a chair keyboard interface issue at this point.

root@kwelch-laptop:/home/kwelch/Documents/temp/rtl8192e_linux_2.6.0011.1029.2009# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr {**REMOVED MAC ADD**}
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:16 Memory:ffffc90001e98000-ffffc90001e98100

root@kwelch-laptop:/home/kwelch/Documents/temp/rtl8192e_linux_2.6.0011.1029.2009# ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted

Any progress getting the driver to work? I am also looking to get it to work under Lenny 64bit.

Hi Karl,
same problem here. Downloaded and successfully compiled driver r8192_pci.ko on my samsung r522 running with debian sid (sidux).
iwconfig sees wlan0 device, but dmesg says:
rtl819xE: PlatformInitFirmware()==>

rtl819xE 0000:02:00.0: firmware: requesting RTL8192E/boot.img
rtl819xE:request firmware fail!

rtl819xE:ERR in init_firmware()

rtl819xE:ERR!!! _rtl8192_up(): initialization is failed!

So I am asking karl if he can kindly forward me the package ?
(antonkoehler@gmx.de)

Got it working under Debian Testing 32bit

1. Compiled 2.6.32.2 kernel with 8192 staging drivers added
2. copied firmware to /lib/firmware/2.6.32.2/RTL8192E
3. Reboot and working fine

The firmware is linked on the first page of this thread, will list it again if it helps
Firmware Link

What we need is...
 

We need firmware for that driver that will work under 64 bit...

Either the driver needs to be reworked or the firmware (or both)...

Who might know what we need to do?

RTL8192E Linux firmware
 

Here is the firmware folder from the driver package that I received from RealTek. Just rename the *.txt to *.zip the whole package is to large to upload to this blog.