I am running slackware 9.1 (kernel 2.4.22) and seam to be stuck in a bit of a "no mans land" with respect to drivers for this card. I'm currently using linuxants' driver loader, but the license to that expires in two days and I really don't want to pay $20 dollers to get a £15 network card working!

The way I see it I have two options:
1. Downgrade to slackware 9.0 which has a kernel which works with the realtek drivers;
2. Stick with slackware 9.1 and upgrade the kernel so that I can use ndisdriver on sourceforge.

Which would be the most stable solution? Support has only just been added to ndisdriver for the realtek rtl8180l chipset - has anyone had it working?

Thanks,

Ben

Please help me! I have Mandrake 9.2 and A Linksys WPC-11 version 4, but I am running kernel version 2.4.22-10mdk. Is there anything I can do to get this thing to work? I have already downloaded rtl8180.zip, as suggested on the previous page, and put all the necessary files in the right place. The only problem seems to be that the command "iwpriv" does not exist on my system (I did a "locate" as root and it returned nothing). Can anyone offer me any suggestions?


Thanks
Michael

Hi Michael,

I pulled my hair for ages trying to get this chipset to work with the 2.4.22 kernel (slackware 9.1 default). I found that the only way it will work with 2.4.22 is using driver loader from linuxant. Driverloader will only work for 1 month before you have to pay $20 (I think)

If you are prepared to change your kernel there are a couple of other options:

Kernel 2.4.21 and below - use the realtek drivers as described by others in this thread;

Kernel 2.6.0 and above or 2.4.23 and above - use ndiswrapper from sourceforge.

Apparantly, ndiswrapper is frowned upon by some because it uses the windows driver and a special wrapper. Until realtek release another driver for later kernels this may well be the only solution.

This is all info that I have gleaned for this thread and other sources after hours of searching. If I have made mistakes please feel free to correct me!

Ben

Okay, well suppose I want to downgrade to kernel 2.4.21. Am I going to lose everything that I have stored on my hard disk or can I just "hide" it in another partition? And if I do downgrade, are there any programs that run on 22 that wont run on 21?

OK, here goes:

* Everyone, please read the whole thread (or at least half!) before posting, and look around other places for more info (like kernel compilation and the sort), as most questions have been answered. *

1. To use the Reatltek drivers, you must have kernel 2.4.21 or earlier. You will not lose your data on the harddrive.

2. You don't have to downgrade your distro, just recompile the kernel.

3. Please read the previous posts BEFORE asking questions!

Just remember: there are no dumb questions one the net, just repeated ones.

I'd downgrade...been using 2.4.21 with the Netgear MA521 driver for a while now and it works fine.

I guess I will try it soon. I'll let you know.

Hello!

It may seem like a dumb question, but has anyone got this chipset working in AP mode?

I have managed to get the card up in adhoc, but AP is why I bought the card in a first place.

I have tried the wlanup script that was included with the driver v1.5 from realtek, using parameter ap, but it does not seem to work (I see no ssid when scanning with my laptop).

Best regards,
JN

The drivers use AP mode standard. Go to this link and try using the scripts posted there:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...267#post796267

I have tried the script supplied here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6267#post796267

I am using RH9 with the default kernel.

When I type sh wlanup the card starts flashing but never gets connected to the AP.

less /proc/rtl8180/status gives

LINK Fail!

Channel number = 0
beacon period = 100
BSSID = 0x00 0x11 0x22 0x33 0x44 0x55
SSID = aptest2
Capability = 0x00
AID = 0x00

dmesg gives a lot of TX Normal descriptor unavailable

I modified the script in the url to include
iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para ssid=realtek which changed SSID to realtek which is what my AP is set to.

How should I proceed? I have read most of the post and every time I try the card refuses to join anything. I have tried different scripts in the post and tried different linux distributions with no luck.

The card is a D-link DWL-610

Try setting your router/AP to it's default settings (no wep, 'default' as SSID, etc) as the script is for the default setttings, and from there you add on to it for wep and other not default settings.

Did you change the gateway ip? did you change the /sbin/ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.101 line to an address within your router's/AP's range? Try using the DHCP command (look around on the thread, other people used it on their scripts, try pages 1 to 20) instead of "route add default gw 192.168.0.1".

Did you use iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para ssid2scan=realtek or iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para ssid=realtek. There is a difference.

Just to be sure, make certain your kernel is version 2.4.21 or below and you have recompiled the driver using 'make'. Do a uname -a to check.

Did you create a resolv.conf, and ifcfg-wlan0 file?

Please post you whole scripts, including the ifcfg-wlan0 and resolv.conf files, and make sure all the IP addresses correspond to YOUR router and network configuration.

Try looking around the thread. Many people have found redhat being the most easy to configure, and within this thread there are countless amounts of people's successful attempts at getting this to work. Don't forget (get ready) to Read The (very) Fine Manual before posting! Read the whole thread, the README that comes with the drivers, and try other people's successful scripts, while at the same time seeing how different their successes are to your current problems.

I have an sweex wireless pci card with the RTL8180L chipset.
I tried to make it work under:
1)suse 9.0
2)redhat 9
both did'nt work at all.
now i have suse 8.2 I can make and install and insmod the driver, but when i make it in AP mode and start it in AP mode everything seems to work, but i can't locate it with my laptop.
When i make it in STA mode, and start the infra/adhoc mode, my computer crashes, the caps and scrollocks are blinking and my computer gives a kernel panic.
I want to have it working in AP mode does anyone has a solution?

I read this thread start to finish several times. I spent many sessions of a couple hours with different kernel versions, different versions of the driver, even install RH9 from scratch just to see if I could get this to work. I never got any connectivity. I did get the driver to panic the kernel several times. One of the drivers would load, and spike the cpu...laptop fan would stay on the whole time the module was loaded...

Long story short, I gave up, loaded Gentoo with 2.6 kernel, bought a NEW Lucent Orinoco Silver off eBay for $31 and had it working 10 minutes after plugging it in...with 64bit WEP...

It doesn't have to be this hard. Linux users should boycott this chipset, and maybe Realtek altogether....

It's really not too bad to get working, I read this thread once a while ago, popped the card in, did what a few people said in here and it worked fine and I havn't had a problem since... I'm using Slackware 9.1 and the 2.4.21 kernel with a Netgear MA521 wireless card using the RTL8180L chipset.

I wouldn't really go bashing Realtek for it though, they know what they're doing, which is obviously why they're still in business with some of the most popular chipsets to date still.

Getting this card up is not near as difficult as some think it to be. You just have to read about what pertains to you (distro, tips, and the basic info).

To be honest, Realtek is doing the open source community wrong by leaving the driver to this chipset closed. This forces us to use an older kernel and awkward commands, with some great distros (like mandrake) virtually impossible to install on. With such a ubiquitous chipset as this one, they should at least collaborate with an open source developer to develop an open sourced driver so that all distros and flavors of linux can be supported and the hardware enjoyed by all their customers. This just means more money to them. I still don't know why they don't do that.

Anyway, anyone still having trouble, look at the last four pages of this thread, as a mini-HOWTO is contained within them and nearly all of the files needed. It is very tiring to write the same things over and over. And in case you need the files, here is a zipped package with the most successful drivers. Use it with my previous post on how I got my setup working.

Just post if you REALLY are dying with this.