Has the rtlwifi_new driver become unusable?

[Pjotr]

There has appeared a disconcerting message on the GitHub page of lwfinger (Larry Finger):

This code will build on any kernel 4.2 and newer as long as the distro has not modified any of the kernel APIs. IF YOU RUN UBUNTU, YOU CAN BE ASSURED THAT THE APIs HAVE CHANGED. NO, I WILL NOT MODIFY THE SOURCE FOR YOU. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!!!!!

Source: https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new

Does this mean that we can't use this excellent driver anymore?

[Flemur]

I'll give it a shot, but the instructions are quite poor, as usual.

You can find <> using lspci | grep Wireless.

Besides the fact that "<>" is undefined and that's the only place it appears in the page, nope, it didn't work. Nothing returned.

Does "<>" mean "<<YOUR WIRELESS DRIVER CODE>>" ? As in

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe -r <<YOUR WIRELESS DRIVER CODE>>

Let's try:

Code: Select all

$ lsusb | grep Wireless
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 7392:7811 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd EW-7811Un 802.11n Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8188CUS]

What's my "<>" ?
Is it "RTL8188CUS"?
Is "<<YOUR WIRELESS DRIVER CODE>>" --> "RTL8188CUS" or is it lower case, as he lists them in the crummy documentation?

Code: Select all

$ sudo modprobe -r RTL8188CUS
modprobe: FATAL: Module RTL8188CUS not found.
sudo modprobe -r rtl8188cus
modprobe: FATAL: Module rtl8188cus not found.

Oh, well.

I see "rtl8192cu" in my other wifi-fixing adventures, and this didn't complain:

Code: Select all

$ sudo modprobe -r rtl8192cu

Then

Code: Select all

$ sudo modprobe  rtl8192cu
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:977 command_do() Error running install command for rtlwifi
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'rtl8192cu': Operation not permitted

Oh, well.


Edit: After a reboot, my wifi still works!

[Pjotr]

JeremyB has been so kind as to explain a bit about this matter in a PM. Bottom line: we can thankfully still use this fine driver.