This is a repackaging of Realtek's own 8192CU USB WiFi driver for Ubuntu 13.10 and later.

!! This driver is DEPRECATED !!

This driver is not explicitly maintained.

The new rtl8xxxu driver initially introduced in kernel 4.4 works pretty well these days, with some exceptions, but you should try it before trying this repository. The new rtl8xxxu driver initially introduced in kernel 4.4 works mostly well these days, and you should give it a try before trying this repository.

If rtl8xxxu gives you problems, try troubleshooting it first. Known things to look for are:

Make sure to blacklist the older rtl8192cu driver, which some distros seem to load by default otherwise.
Some devices require that power management be disabled in NetworkManager. Follow the instructions further down to disable power management in NetworkManager. Typical symptoms would be that the device works fine for a moment, and then becomes very slow or outright drops the connection.

In some cases, though, this driver has been known to work fine where rtl8xxxu doesn't. If rtl8xxxu doesn't work for you even after the troubleshooting steps listed above, follow the instructions below to install this one instead.

Compatibility

These devices are known to work with this driver:

ASUSTek USB-N13 rev. B1 (0b05:17ab)
Belkin N300 (050d:2103)
D-Link DWA-121 802.11n Wireless N 150 Pico Adapter [RTL8188CUS]
Edimax EW-7811Un (7392:7811)
Kootek KT-RPWF (0bda:8176)
OurLink 150M 802.11n (0bda:8176)
TP-Link TL-WN821Nv4 (0bda:8178)
TP-Link TL-WN822N (0bda:8178)
TP-Link TL-WN823N (only models that use the rtl8192cu chip)
TRENDnet TEW-648UBM N150

These devices are known not to be supported:

Alfa AWUS036NHR
TP-Link WN8200ND

As a rule of thumb, this driver generally works with devices that use the RTL8192CU chipset, and some devices that use the RTL8188CUS, RTL8188CE-VAU and RTL8188RU chipsets too, though it's more hit and miss.

Devices that use dual antennas are known not to work well. This appears to be an issue in the upstream Realtek driver.

Installation

Ensure you have the necessary prerequisites installed:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes.git

Set it up as a DKMS module:

sudo dkms add ./rtl8192cu-fixes

Build and install it:

sudo dkms install 8192cu/1.10

Refresh the module list:

sudo depmod -a

Ensure the native (and broken) kernel driver is blacklisted:

sudo cp ./rtl8192cu-fixes/blacklist-native-rtl8192.conf /etc/modprobe.d/

And reboot. You're done.

Other distributions

The instructions above should work in every Debian-based distribution. So long as you can install the prerequisites on your own, everything after the line that contains apt-get should work in other distributions as well.

On Gentoo, you can disregard the instructions above and just install the following ebuild: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/dev/maksbotan.git/tree/sys-kernel/rtl8192cu-fixes/rtl8192cu-fixes-9999.ebuild

Troubleshooting

There is a known issue with power management on some hardware. If your WiFi connection drops after a few minutes, install the following module setting file to disable power management in your WiFi interface:

sudo cp ./rtl8192cu-fixes/8192cu-disable-power-management.conf /etc/modprobe.d/

And then reboot.

Sometimes Network Manager also sets a device in a power-saving mode where it doesn't use enough power to connect. You can fix it by editing /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf and setting wifi.powersave to 2. And then reboot.

Current status

As it currently stands, the driver doesn't populate /proc with informational data from the driver. The API for /proc has changed in recent kernels, and the driver has not been ported to the new API.

Credits

This repository was initially based on Timothy Phillips's work as published here: https://code.google.com/p/realtek-8188cus-wireless-drivers-3444749-ubuntu-1304/, though no longer.

Thanks go to Saqib Razaq (@s-razaq) for the power management workaround.

Thanks to @CGarces for the Travis configuration.

Thanks to @rburcham for the kernel 4.15 fixes.