Need wireless help for rpm for RTL8188CE and RTL8192CE

English Network/Internet
1

I’m trying to help a friend on openSUSE (who lives in a different continent) via email to install the RealTek wireless driver for his Toshiba.

Output of ‘lspci -nnk’ yields


02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:8182]

I note from here HCL:Network (Wireless) - openSUSE that the RTL8188CE should work with the rtl8192ce from compat-wireless. But when I look here: Index of /repositories/driver:/wireless/openSUSE_11.4 the RTL8192CE is not present for my friend’s 64-bit openSUSE-11.4. I do note that the RTL8192CE is available for openSUSE-11.3.

So I advised him to take the .SRC file from openSUSE-11.3 and rebuild it for his openSUSE-11.4 with the ‘rebuild’ command … ie :

rpmbuild --rebuild rtl8192ce-0005.1116.2010-1.1.src.rpm

…

Was that good advice ?

Is there a better way to do this ?

Is there a better driver for the RTL8188CE and that HCL:Network (Wireless) - openSUSE page out of date ?

2

Having had a chance to read about this, and surf a bit more, and think some more about the HCL:Network (Wireless) - openSUSE webpage which notes " rtl8192ce from compat-wireless" it dawned on my thick skull that “compat-wireless” likely is an RPM that is NOT included with openSUSE , but rather it is likely an rpm on the opensuse download wireless driver site.

Ergo that was NOT good advice that I gave my friend.

I was ignorantly fixated that ‘compat-wireless’ was some defunct repository. … Its NOT! It is an rpm ! … I should know better. … Anyway, ignorance can’t be pardoned, only cured. And I hope I have found the cure.

When I look at this repository:


http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/driver:/wireless/11.4-update/

and download (but not install) check out the rpm compat-wireless-kmp-default-2.6.38.2_k2.6.37.6_0.5-2.1.x86_64.rpm with the command:


rpm -qip compat-wireless-kmp-default-2.6.38.2_k2.6.37.6_0.5-2.1.x86_64.rpm -l

I obtain the following (only salient parts included in my quote):


Name        : compat-wireless-kmp-default  Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 2.6.38.2_k2.6.37.6_0.5            Vendor: obs://build.opensuse.org/driver:wireless
Release     : 2.1                           Build Date: Mon 30 May 2011 02:17:31 PM CEST
Install Date: (not installed)               Build Host: build18
Group       : System/Kernel                 Source RPM: compat-wireless-2.6.38.2-2.1.src.rpm
Size        : 10545240                         License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Mon 30 May 2011 02:19:20 PM CEST, Key ID 5308b44c4073bdbe
URL         : http://www.linuxwireless.org
Summary     : Kernel modules for several WLAN adapters from linuxwireless.org
Description :
This package contains recent kernel modules for several WLAN Adapters from linuxwireless.org
based on the new mac80211-Stack
........
/lib/modules/2.6.37.6-0.5-default/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/**rtl8192ce**
/lib/modules/2.6.37.6-0.5-default/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192ce/rtl8192ce.ko

… duhhh … like hello !! There is the rtl8192ce package I was looking for ! No need to custom compile !

I’m now going to pass the follow advice to my friend (to send the following commands)


su -  #enter root password when prompted
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/driver:/wireless/11.4-update/ wireless
zypper in compat-wireless-kmp-default-2.6.38.2_k2.6.37.6_0.5-2.1.x86_64.rpm
zypper rr wireless
exit

and reboot and test the wireless.

Hopefully then the rtl8192ce should work with the rtl8188ce in his Toshiba.

3

Hi oldcpu
Did you see this thread?
Driver for Realtek: “rtl8192ce” - Are there any devices RTL8192CE / RTL8188SE (jet)?

4

No I had not seen it. I suspect if I had seen it then I would have come to the correct approach a lot sooner. … < sigh > …

Thanks! If I read that thread correctly it confirms that my friend needs to install ‘compat-wireless’.

5

I too have a Realtek RTL8188CE – new installtion of 11.4. After installing comapt-wireless for my kernel, dmesg tells me
“rtl8192ce:rtl19c_download_fw():<0-0> Failed to request firmware!”
Any suggestions as to where to go from here? Thanks!

6

On 07/05/2011 09:06 PM, daousley wrote:
>
> I too have a Realtek RTL8188CE – new installtion of 11.4. After
> installing comapt-wireless for my kernel, dmesg tells me
> “rtl8192ce:rtl19c_download_fw():<0-0> Failed to request firmware!”
> Any suggestions as to where to go from here? Thanks!

Install the kernel-firmware package using YaST or zypper. The firmware file you
need is there.

7

Many thanks! You’re great.

8

daousley, now that you have wireless working …

Out of curiosity, having done this, how does the mouse work ? …

I know, strange question, but the Toshiba laptop PC of my friend has some peculiarities in its BIOS ( ? ) and after we got the wireless working, the mouse failed to function. He found an obscure reference on the web noting for his Toshiba laptop model (and some other Toshiba’s), both wireless and mouse would not work at same time in GNU/Linux for certain kernel versions !

Unfortunately (us being a continent way exchanging emails to solve the problem) he ran out of time (as his wife needed to use the laptop) and he installed a GNU/Linux version he was more familiar with (which was an OLDER Ubuntu version - NOT the most current which shared openSUSE’s mouse/wireless problem) which had a different kernel version. He was happy there except sound/mic recording did NOT work properly in Ubuntu. I then was able to help him in Ubuntu get sound/mic working, although it was not straight forward and he had to do more research to sort some Ubuntu specific sound/mic recording peculiarities. Getting the sound/mic to work in Ubuntu was very difficult but in the end he succeeded, and now has a laptop for his wife that can connect via wireless and gives her Skype. My technical knowledge with sound being superior to my technical knowledge with wireless may have contributed to his settling with a distro OTHER than openSUSE. … But, my view of his distro hopping is GNU/Linux is GNU/Linux.

It was a surprise thou, for his Toshiba laptop, with the 2.6.37 kernel of openSUSE-11.4, to learn by enabling wireless (RTL8188CE) he crippled his mouse (for certain kernel versions).

9

I just used compat-wireless to fix the RTL8188CE on my Toshiba P750D laptop running 12.1. Good news is that the wireless seems solid after the fix (before it was very unreliable, hard to connect and then just hanging after a minute or two of operation). Bad news is that my USB mouse is now dead. I’m on 3.1.10-1.9-defaultx 86_64. Any suggestions for the mouse? I find the trackpad painful.

10

I would try out kernel update with the package from this repo :
Index of /repositories/Kernel:/openSUSE-12.1/standard

It is easy to get back to the old kernel if things will not work with this kernel as expected. You can also have both versions installed at the same time. Here are instructions on how to achieve this :
http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/453867-grey-screen-death-boot-4.html#post2288618