[RESOLVED] Wifi drivers for RTL8191SE

[z662]

Hello,

I have a Toshiba Satellite L675D laptop with a Realtek RTL8191SE wireless card in it.


brad@moon:~$ lspci -v|grep -i wireless
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)


Unfortunately it does not appear that they make a non Windows driver. I have downloaded the windows driver for it, and have followed the instructions here:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/Wireless#head-926e59659ffd84f4abc68fb3ae98c65ba73358e3

But am unable to get it working. I am able to add the driver via 'ndisgtk' but whenever I try to actually use it, or check the output of dmesg it does not appear to be loaded. (only etho and lo0 show up from 'ifconfig')

brad@moon:~$ lspci -v|grep -i wireless
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
brad@moon:~$ dmesg | grep -i ndis
ndiswrapper version 1.56 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
ndiswrapper (import:233): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'IoWMIQueryAllData'
ndiswrapper (import:233): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'IoWMIOpenBlock'
ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:206): couldn't prepare driver 'net8192se'
ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:108): couldn't load driver net8192se; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper



Also, not sure which system log they are referring to in the above output. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[AlanBartlett]

Hmm, as it is a silly hour of the night / early morning for me and I haven't yet been to sleep I'll just ask have you yet checked with the [url=http://elrepo.org]ELRepo Project[/url]?

As for a log file, try [b]/var/log/messages[/b].

[z662]

Thanks for the reply.

I guess I would have to ask you to define "check".

The tutorial I followed required me to download the proper ndiswrapper FROM El Repo, but I did not ask them about it. I figured this section of the forums would yield much more information than just the repo maintainers.

Is that what you mean?

When I get home I will check that log file and post back. thanks.

[AlanBartlett]

By "check" I was thinking more about [url=http://elrepo.org/tiki/FAQ]FAQ #4[/url] and the possibility of you showing us the [i]Vendor:Device ID paring[/i] for your problematical device.

Those two hexadecimal numbers are far more important than "wordy" descriptions such as --

[quote]
Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
[/quote]
Why I am asking for that information? Various drivers support multiple devices and there may [i]just[/i] be a suitable native driver for your device.

[z662]

I see, thanks for clarifying.

Here is my output from /var/log/messages

Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.56 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: ndiswrapper (import:233): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'IoWMIQueryAllData'
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: ndiswrapper (import:233): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'IoWMIOpenBlock'
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:206): couldn't prepare driver 'net8192se'
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:108): couldn't load driver net8192se; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: r8169 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
Nov 3 19:20:44 moon kernel: r8169 0000:03:00.0: unknown MAC, using family default

And as requested here is my Vendor Device ID. I hope this helps! Thanks again.

brad@moon:/var/log$ for BUSID in $(/sbin/lspci | awk '{ IGNORECASE=1 } /net/ { print $1 }'); do /sbin/lspci -s $BUSID -m; /sbin/lspci -s $BUSID -n; done
02:00.0 "Network controller" "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd." "RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller" -r10 "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd." "Device 8181"
02:00.0 0280: 10ec:8172 (rev 10)
03:00.0 "Ethernet controller" "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd." "RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller" -r05 "Toshiba America Info Systems" "Device fd00"
03:00.0 0200: 10ec:8136 (rev 05)
brad@moon:/var/log$

[AlanBartlett]

Thank you for the device [i]"fingerprint"[/i].

By looking up [b]10ec:8172[/b] on the [url=http://elrepo.org/tiki/DeviceIDs&highlight=10EC:8172]Device IDs[/url] page, I see it is reference under the [b]r8192se_pci.ko[/b] heading. That is confirmed when looking at the [url=http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-r8192se&highlight=10EC:8172]kmod-r8192se[/url] page.

So assuming you have configured your system to allow [i]yum[/i] access to the repositories (if not, go back to the [url=http://elrepo.org]home page[/url] for details), all you need to do is --

[code]
[b]yum remove kmod-ndiswrapper ndiswrapper-utils
yum install kmod-r8192se[/b]
[/code]
That will remove the unnecessary ndiswrapper code and install the [b]r8192se[/b] driver, which should be appropriate for your [b]Realtek RTL8191SE[/b] WiFi device. :-)

[z662]

Thanks Alan, I have followed your advice and successfully installed the driver, however I was expecting it to be loaded after a reboot. ifconfig and dmesg still do not show a wifi interface being loaded. Is there something that I am missing?

[AlanBartlett]

Hmm, something odd is happening. Just so that everything is clear, will you please post the output returned by the following sequence of commands --

[code]
[b]rpm -qa kernel\* | sort
uname -rmi
rpm -qa kmod-\*
ls -l $(find /lib/modules -name r8192\*.ko | sort)
lspci -s 02:00.0 -nn
modinfo -F alias r8192se_pci[/b]
[/code]

[z662]

Certainly

brad@moon:~$ rpm -qa kernel\* | sort
kernel-2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64
kernel-devel-2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-devel-2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-devel-2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.x86_64
kernel-devel-2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64
kernel-firmware-2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.noarch
kernel-headers-2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.x86_64
brad@moon:~$ uname -rmi
2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.x86_64 x86_64 x86_64
brad@moon:~$ rpm -qa kmod-\*
kmod-r8192se-0019.1207.2010-2.el6.elrepo.x86_64
brad@moon:~$ ls -l $(find /lib/modules -name r8192\*.ko | sort)
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 62 Nov 5 11:06 /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.x86_64/weak-updates/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko -> /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 62 Nov 5 11:06 /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.17.1.el6.x86_64/weak-updates/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko -> /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 62 Nov 5 11:06 /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.x86_64/weak-updates/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko -> /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 765000 Apr 7 2011 /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/r8192se/r8192se_pci.ko
brad@moon:~$ lspci -s 02:00.0 -nn
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller [10ec:8172] (rev 10)
brad@moon:~$ modinfo -F alias r8192se_pci
pci:v000010ECd00008174sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
pci:v000010ECd00008173sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
pci:v000010ECd00008172sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
pci:v000010ECd00008171sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
pci:v000010ECd00008192sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
brad@moon:~$

[AlanBartlett]

Thank you. From that information we can see that everything is as it should be.

Do you log into a GUI or a CLI? Because I wonder how you are configuring the system to load the driver. As with [b]RHEL 6[/b], [url=http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General?highlight=%28TUV%29#head-d29a2b7e61ffc544973098f9dd49fe4663efba50]TUV[/url] have removed the [b]system-config-network[/b] utility and expect all configuration to be performed via [b]NetworkManager[/b].

Does the driver correctly load into the kernel? Please try --

[code]
[b]modprobe r8192se_pci
lsmod | grep r8192[/b]
[/code]
If that is satisfactory, perhaps a review of [url=http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/part-Networking.html]Part III[/url] of the [url=http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/index.html]Upstream Deployment Guide[/url] will assist.