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Realtek RTL8192E, RTL8188SU, RTL8191S, RTL8192SU, RTL8192U devices

This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Realtek 802.11n chipsets on Debian systems.

Contents

  1. Realtek RTL8192E, RTL8188SU, RTL8191S, RTL8192SU, RTL8192U devices
    1. Drivers
    2. Installation
      1. Squeeze
      2. Lenny
    3. Supported Devices
      1. r8192_pci
      2. r8192s_usb
      3. r8192u_usb
    4. See Also
    5. External Links

Drivers

rtl8192e, rtl8192su and rtl8192u are vendor drivers for Realtek 802.11n wireless LAN chipsets. They are included as staging drivers in the mainline Linux kernel.

The produced kernel modules are:

Non-free firmware is required, which can be provided by installing the firmware-realtek package. Firmware must be installed prior to device operation. RTL8192U firmware is currently not packaged (588142).

<!> These staging drivers are only available for the x86 and x86-64 architectures (Debian i386 and AMD64 ports respectively) at this time.

{i} Realtek 802.11b/g devices are supported by different drivers.

Installation

Squeeze

  1. Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example: 

    # Debian Squeeze/6.0
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free

  2. Update the list of available packages and install the firmware-realtek and wireless-tools packages: 

    # aptitude update
# aptitude install firmware-realtek wireless-tools
  3. For users with RTL8192U-based devices only:

    Firmware is required to be supplied: 

    # aptitude install unzip && exit
$ wget ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwa130_revC/Drivers/dwa130_revC_drivers_linux_006.zip
$ unzip dwa130_revC_drivers_linux_006.zip
$ su
# mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/firmware/RTL8192U
# cp rtl8192u_linux_2.6.0006.1031.2008/firmware/RTL8192U/* /usr/local/lib/firmware/RTL8192U
  4. If not already performed, connect the device to your system.

  5. The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via either: 

    # modprobe r8192_pci

    or 

    # modprobe r8192s_usb

    or 

    # modprobe r8192u_usb

  6. Verify your device has an available interface: 

    # iwconfig

  7. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Lenny

  1. Add the Debian Backports repository to /etc/apt/sources.list, also including the "non-free" component. For example: 

    # Backported packages for Debian Lenny/5.0
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main contrib non-free

  2. Update the list of available packages: 

    # aptitude update

  3. Install a Linux 2.6.32 kernel image appropriate for your system, along with the lenny-backports/firmware-realtek and wireless-tools packages. For example: 

    # aptitude -t lenny-backports install linux-image-2.6-$(uname -r | sed 's,.*-,,') firmware-realtek wireless-tools
  4. For users with RTL8192U-based devices only:

    Firmware is required to be supplied: 

    # aptitude install unzip && exit
$ wget ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwa130_revC/Drivers/dwa130_revC_drivers_linux_006.zip
$ unzip dwa130_revC_drivers_linux_006.zip
$ su
# mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/firmware/RTL8192U
# cp rtl8192u_linux_2.6.0006.1031.2008/firmware/RTL8192U/* /usr/local/lib/firmware/RTL8192U
  5. Restart your system and boot with the newly installed kernel. If not already performed, connect the device to your system.

  6. The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via either: 

    # modprobe r8192_pci

    or 

    # modprobe r8192s_usb

    or 

    # modprobe r8192u_usb

  7. Verify your device has an available interface: 

    # iwconfig

  8. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Supported Devices

r8192_pci

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo r8192_pci in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-30) kernel images.

r8192s_usb

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/USB explains how to identify a USB device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo r8192s_usb in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-30) kernel images.

r8192u_usb

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/USB explains how to identify a USB device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo r8192u_usb in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-30) kernel images.

See Also

CategoryHardware | CategoryWireless