I read all most all the posts in the thread and still can't get my RTL8180 card to work. ( I am using Mandrake 9.2 with downgraded kenerl 2.4.21 )
When I issue the command iwpriv wlan0 enable, I get a "segmentation fault". I saw a post in this thread that says no matter what your kernel is, this card just can't work with mandrake distribution. Is it true? Has anyone succeeded in using it in Mandrake 9.2? How to deal with the "segmentation fault"?

Here is the output of dmesg:
******** RTL8180 Wireless Lan Driver 2003-11-24 loaded********
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 02:00.0 to 64
RTL8180: 02:00.0: region #0 IS a PIO resource!
RTL8180: request_region(0x00004000,0x00000100) !
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
RTL8180 WLAN driver version 1.5
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address bd400080
printing eip:
d0abe450
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0002
CPU: 0
EIP: 0010:[<d0abe450>] Not tainted
EFLAGS: 00010286
eax: 9001f000 ebx: 00000000 ecx: 00000000 edx: 00000001
esi: d0ae0c60 edi: 00004000 ebp: cbc8dd24 esp: cbc8dd1c
ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018
Process iwpriv (pid: 2532, stackpage=cbc8d000)
Stack: c7366160 c7366000 cbc8dd54 d0abf547 0000001f 00000000 00000000 00000000
c12c7db8 c7540000 0b60b000 c7366160 c7540000 00004000 cbc8dd84 d0abeab2
c7366000 0000000b 00004000 d0aacc53 001531c8 00000202 c12c7db8 3014f40e
Call Trace: [<d0abf547>] [<d0abeab2>] [<d0aacc53>] [<d0aaba7f>] [<d0aa9c42>]
[<d0ac35a6>] [<c0130b4d>] [<c012c120>] [<c012c097>] [<c012c33c>] [<c0116184>]
[<d0aa9a50>] [<c028f80c>] [<c028ff1e>] [<c0286dfd>] [<c01503b3>] [<c010787f>]

Here is the output of /proc/rtl8180/status:
---------------------------------------

rtl8180_pci_driver version 1.5 loaded.
The Network is configured as Infrastructure mode.
MacAddr = 00:90:47:06:c8:17
ioaddr = 0x4000
irq = 11


---------------------------------------
Wireless Link status
---------------------------------------

Link Fail!

Channel number = 0
beacon period = 100
BSSID = 0x00 0x11 0x22 0x33 0x44 0x55
SSID = aptest2
Capability = 0x00
AID = 0x00
Operational rates = <1><2><5.5><11>Mbps
Current TX operational rates = <1>Mbps

What's funny is that no one I've ever asked who has used mandrake has ever gotten this card to work under that distro. It sounds bad, but the best thing to do is to switch to another distro, like fedora, slackware, or debian, all the most successful distros in getting the card to work. Try ndiswrapper.

I just looked at the Mandrake wource code and look at what I found...

public class DistroOfLinux {

...some stuff skipped

// Class Data
private static boolean sucksAtLife;

...later on

Mandrake = new DistroOfLinux();
Mandrake.sucksAtLife = true;

So THAT is why Mandrake sucks...I'll be damned

</JOKE>

Has anybody been in contact with the maintainer at RealTek or know of any plans for the 2.6.x kernel series? I would love to switch to 2.6.x, but I'm having problems with ndiswrapper and linuxant. These really aren't optimal solutions anyway and how hard can it be to port it over to 2.6.x? I'm not an open source zealot, but for christ's sake, how much "trade secret" info is really in the private part. Just give us the code, we'll get it ported to 2.6.x, intergrated with the normal wireless tools, and also into the kernel tree and then whoever the maintainer at realtek is won't have to touch it ever again.

Unfortunately Realtek has refused to release the source code after many requests, and we (members on this thread) at one point sent many emails to them for such a release. It may be due to trade secrets they don't want to release the code, or as someone earlier put it, they don't want to show the world how bad their code/chipset is. Releasing the driver code for the chipset could be the greatest thing for them, since theirs is one of the most used and is used in the cheapest (in price) of the wlan cards. With true Linux support, their market would really expand and only profits could be realized.

Here is the strangest thing I have seen in a while.

I have a linksys wpc11 ver.4, fedora core 2 with kernel 2.6.3-1.118 and the linuxant driver.

The darn thing works. It links up to my AP and I can set an IP with ifconfig, setup the default route no problem.

tcpdump sees traffic on the interface, and another system on the network shows traffic from the wpc11 when I do a ping.

I can see arp requests and answers to the arp request from tcpdump on the system with the wpc11.

However ping says host unreachable, and it cannot connect to anything. It appears that only tcpdump sees the traffic.

Do you have an resolv.conf file correctly setup with a nameserver? Is your ifcf-wlan0 correctly set? If and when you successfully set this up, please post a how-to on getting it running for those seeking an alternative to the realtek linux drivers.

Yep, networking is setup correctly.

check this out..

[root@zeus root]# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"davix-2" Nickname:"davix-2"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417GHz Access Point: 00:0C:41:D7:23:99
Bit Rate=11Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:1/1 Signal level:-62 dBm Noise level:-200 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


See the invalid stuff?


[root@zeus root]# ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=0 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.0.2 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable

[root@zeus root]# tcpdump -i wlan0
21:49:01.360177 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2
21:49:01.416798 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 00:d0:b7:85:0f:40
21:49:02.361665 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2
21:49:02.439974 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 00:d0:b7:85:0f:40
21:49:03.360871 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2
21:49:03.463733 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 00:d0:b7:85:0f:40
21:49:04.360719 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2
21:49:04.385384 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 00:d0:b7:85:0f:40
21:49:05.361985 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2
21:49:05.410252 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 00:d0:b7:85:0f:40
21:49:06.361415 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2

[root@zeus root]# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

[root@zeus root]# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:41:A6:9E:49
inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:41ff:fea6:9e49/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:21 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2323 (2.2 Kb) TX bytes:1008 (1008.0 b)

Here is another AP..


[root@zeus root]# iwconfig wlan0 essid davix


[root@zeus root]# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"davix" Nickname:"davix-2"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point: 00:0C:41:C8:8E:50
Bit Rate=11Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:1/1 Signal level:-62 dBm Noise level:-200 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

[root@zeus root]# ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.241


[root@zeus root]# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:41:A6:9E:49
inet addr:192.168.1.241 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:41ff:fea6:9e49/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3041 (2.9 Kb) TX bytes:1008 (1008.0 b)

[root@zeus root]# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0


[root@zeus root]# ping -I wlan0 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) from 192.168.1.241 wlan0: 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.1.241 icmp_seq=0 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.241 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.241 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 5056ms
, pipe 4

Kernel 2.6.x
 

Ok, so apparently Realtek doesn't want to open up their code...fine. The questions really is then if we're going to get something for the 2.6.x kernel anytime soon?

I would prefer to just use another card. Does anyone know of one that actually works, and can be bought somewhere?


I thought it was arp problems so I disabled arp on the AP's router and the driverloader client and created static neighbor tables.

The result was about the same, except the router just replies to the client without trying to get it mac address. the reply is hitting the wlan0 interface and can be seen on the client with tcpdump. however the ping still says host unreachable.


This is not a routing problem it's a configuration problem. If I use system-config-network to create an ifcfg-wlan0 file the client will boot and load the driver ok as long as there is no AP it can associate with. As soon as an AP is enabled that the client is setup to assiciate with the kernel panics with an irq conflict.

The problem seems to be when iwconfig is used to set the Type=Wireless or set the Rate.

If you do not set these everything is ok except it does not work.


I don't care if it's driverloader or anything else as long as I can find one somewhere for sale that is known to work.

im on fedora core 1 with kernel 2.4.22-1 and i can not get this thing to work, please someone help

What's it doing?

well i do the insmod and it says trying to force load into the kernel. it doesnt findthe device at all actualy

2.4.22 kernel
 

It's my understanding that the realtek driver won't work on a 2.4.22 driver. That's why a bunch of us slackware users had to downgrade to the 2.4.21 kernel. I'm pissed that realtek isn't putting out a 2.6.x driver.