So I bought a new wireless pci-e adapter today that has a realtek 8192CE chipset. I checked before I bought it and it is supported in the kernel since 2.6.38. Just to be safe I used the kernel-huge-2.6.39-rc4 config file from testing just to get it to work. All the kernel modules are loaded correctly and it is recognized by iwconfig, however wicd acts as if there is no wireless card in the system. I checked dmesg and saw this error.

rtl8192cu:loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin
rtl8192cu:firmware loading failed

So I googled around and didn't find much except for somethings about needing firmware. I did make firmware_install but for some reason there is no rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin file. As a test I found an RPM that had the bin file I needed. I converted it to a tgz and ran explodepkg on it to extract the one file I needed. I made a directory /lib/firmware/rtlwifi and dropped the .bin file in and wicd immediately found my networks. So I guess it is a missing firmware issue, however I am currently not able to obtain and ip address. but for now my question is why did the kernel not build the firmware I need, or is that something I have to download and build separately?

Any clues on this appreciated, thanks.

The firmware for this network card is not included with the Linux kernel. I suspect it has something to do with a licensing issue, but I don't know for sure. Some distributions package up the firmware files available from http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kerne...x-firmware.git, which includes the file you need. Alternatively, you could get the firmware file from the Linux driver download for your network card form the Realtek website. That's all for future reference, of course, as it seems you have worked it out for now.

You're right, I finally found the firmware in the realtek linux driver on there website, however I can't get wicd to obtain an ip address. All the modules are loaded and the firmware is recognized. But I still cant figure out why I cant establish a connection.

We'll I tried using the drivers provided by realtek on there website with a fresh install of 13.37 and got a little farther. The LED light now works when trying to connect to my network. But I still can't obtain and IP address. I am starting to think it a problem with the router but I can't test it since I don't have access to it. I guess I will just use my old atheros G card that works until I get my own internet.