This Page is a copy.

The original page can be found at:

http://www.datanorth.net/%7Ecuervo/rtl8187b/FAQ.html

The rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz has been downloaded from:

http://www.datanorth.net/%7Ecuervo/rtl8187b/

Klaumi (klaumikli(at)gmx.de), 18.2.2008

• RTL8187B
• What does this patch do?
• That's a LOT of errors during compilation.
• ``Master'' mode doesn't work!
• Will this patch work with my card?
• How do I compile the driver?
• Who wrote the driver?
• Does WPA work?
• Miscellaneous
• How do I get the driver to load on boot?

I've noticed the same questions being asked over and over in the forums that link to my site, so I've come up with this little mini-FAQ.

RTL8187B

What does this patch do?

The patch does two things. It adds explicit support for my wireless card, USB ID 0bda:8197, and allows you to override the detected card, in order to try the driver with cards that might have been manufactured with a different USB ID after the driver was released.

If your card doesn't work, you might want to try passing one of the following parameters to the module:

  force_card=0x8189

  force_card=0x8187

It's really not a huge patch. I just added a fallthrough for my specific card and an override for other cards.

That's a LOT of errors during compilation.

Yup, but none of them have been fatal, as far as I'm aware. Don't worry about them as long as you don't get something like this:

 make: *** [stuff] Error 1

``Master'' mode doesn't work!

Yup. Sucks. :-(

I've only gotten the card working in managed and ad-hoc. AP mode seems to do exactly the same thing as ad-hoc.

Will this patch work with my card?

Short answer: I don't know. Try it and find out! :-)

Long answer: Do an lsusb | egrep '0bda:81(87|89|97)'. If your card comes back, it ought to work.

How do I compile the driver?

Unpack the driver:

  tar xvfz rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz

Change into the driver source directory:

  cd rtl8187b-modified

Compile the driver (note, there are a hell of a lot of warnings):

  ./makedrv

To load the driver:

  ./wlan0up

Who wrote the driver?

Andrea Merello is in the docs as the original author of the driver. Johnny Cuervo (hi!) made this simple patch.

Does WPA work?

Beats me, I've never even tried it with my Prism2 cards. I've heard you need to use wpa_supplicant or somesuch.

Miscellaneous

How do I get the driver to load on boot?

In /etc/network/interfaces, change your wlan0 definition to look something like the following:

 iface wlan0 inet dhcp
   wireless-essid       my-network
   wireless-key1        s:mykey
   wireless-mode        managed
   wireless-channel     6

   pre-up               /root/rtl8187b-modified/wlan0up
   post-down            /root/rtl8187b-modified/wlan0down

The pre-up says to run a command before the interface is brought up, and post-down says to run a command after it's taken down.

For more information, see interfaces(5) and wireless(7).