# RTL8191SU drivers

## indio

Hi Everyone,

I've got a RealTek USB wifi antenna, and I'm not sure what driver I need for it.

It shows up with lsusb as:

```
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8172 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter
```

And I've tried loading the following drivers:

rtl8192se

rtl8192cu

rtl8192ce

rtl8192c_common

rtlwifi

After installing net-wireless/rtl8192su-firmware, but no matter what I try it doesn't show up in ifconfig / iwconfig!

Any ideas?

----------

## SamuliSuominen

net-wireless/rtl8192su-firmware is no longer in Portage because the file rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin from sys-kernel/linux-firmware package replaced it.

```

# emerge linux-firmware

# qlist linux-firmware | grep rtl8192

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU.bin

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192defw.bin

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192sefw.bin

# cd /usr/src/linux-3.8.4

# grep -r rtl8192cufw.bin drivers/net/*

drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/sw.c:MODULE_FIRMWARE("rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin");

drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/sw.c:   .fw_name = "rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin",

# grep log_dmesg /etc/conf.d/bootmisc 

log_dmesg="YES"

# tail -f /var/log/dmesg

```

As in, follow the dmesg when loading the rtlwifi module and when bringing up the interface(s)

Hope that helps

----------

## indio

Thanks, it looks like I had to unmerge some old firmware to remove blocks, but I got linux-firmware installed now. Rebooted and loaded the rtlwifi and rtl8192cu modules, but unfortunately this is the only line that shows up in dmesg:

```
[  174.790430] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8192cu
```

Still doesn't show up in ifconfig unfortunately.

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## SamuliSuominen

 *indio wrote:*   

> It shows up with lsusb as:
> 
> ```
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8172 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8191SU 802.11n WLAN Adapter
> ```
> ...

 

Look at:

```

# cd /usr/src/linux-3.8.4

# grep -r -i 0bda drivers/net/*

# grep -r -i 8172 drivers/net/*

```

And you will find similar ones, but not exactly the one you are looking for. I don't know but looks to me like the newer kernels, with the new rtlwifi driver no longer supports that USB device.

However if you google for 0bda:8172 you will find links like:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-6945178-highlight-.html

So it seems you might need to go back down to Linux 3.1 to get r8172u or r8172u_usb driver from the staging area, the rtlwifi simply doesn't support your device yet?! Well, I'm done, good luck.

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## indio

Hmm, well according to the post you linked to, and one I found the driver is actually 'rtl8712', not 'rtl8172', which is sitting in the staging area. Building that from Linux 3.1 as you suggested, and I'll see what happens when I install it!

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## bas89

And what happened? Sitting here with the same problem...

----------

