Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

[Greg KH]

Hi all,

I have a box here with a Realtek 8821 wireless PCI device.  We don't
seem to have a driver upstream for it yet, but there's a huge tarball
from Realtek on their site.

Has anyone started picking the needed pieces out of the tarball to get
this merged "properly", or does this need to be done yet?

Hm, I wonder if I should just dump the tarball into staging for now, to
get my box working, any objections to me doing that?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

[Larry Finger]

On 01/20/2014 01:32 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a box here with a Realtek 8821 wireless PCI device.  We don't
> seem to have a driver upstream for it yet, but there's a huge tarball
> from Realtek on their site.
>
> Has anyone started picking the needed pieces out of the tarball to get
> this merged "properly", or does this need to be done yet?
>
> Hm, I wonder if I should just dump the tarball into staging for now, to
> get my box working, any objections to me doing that?

I have had contact with the Realtek developers regarding a Linux driver for the 
RTL8821AE device with PCI ID 10ec:8821. On Dec 10, 2013, they indicated that 
there were still 802.11ac problems, and they were not yet ready to release it to 
me. I will write them again and check if the driver is now ready, and they just 
forgot to send it to me. Once they are ready, they will also be sending me 
sample devices.

What is the URL for the driver that you found? I did a quick search on their 
site and did not find it.

To answer your question, I certainly would have no objections to your dumping 
the driver into staging. I can fix it up there as easily as in my own private 
stores. You will, of course, get a lot more intermediate patches, but I think 
you have already anticipated that. The PCI group usually send me mac80211-based 
drivers, thus the residence in staging may be short, but that is desirable.

Larry

Re: Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 06:47:29PM -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 01/20/2014 01:32 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a box here with a Realtek 8821 wireless PCI device.  We don't
> > seem to have a driver upstream for it yet, but there's a huge tarball
> > from Realtek on their site.
> >
> > Has anyone started picking the needed pieces out of the tarball to get
> > this merged "properly", or does this need to be done yet?
> >
> > Hm, I wonder if I should just dump the tarball into staging for now, to
> > get my box working, any objections to me doing that?
> 
> I have had contact with the Realtek developers regarding a Linux driver for the 
> RTL8821AE device with PCI ID 10ec:8821. On Dec 10, 2013, they indicated that 
> there were still 802.11ac problems, and they were not yet ready to release it to 
> me. I will write them again and check if the driver is now ready, and they just 
> forgot to send it to me. Once they are ready, they will also be sending me 
> sample devices.
> 
> What is the URL for the driver that you found? I did a quick search on their 
> site and did not find it.

It came with a device I got at a conference, along with 1,000 other
people, so it's being used in the "wild" now, running Linux.  I'll send
you the patch off-list as it's not small.

> To answer your question, I certainly would have no objections to your dumping 
> the driver into staging. I can fix it up there as easily as in my own private 
> stores. You will, of course, get a lot more intermediate patches, but I think 
> you have already anticipated that. The PCI group usually send me mac80211-based 
> drivers, thus the residence in staging may be short, but that is desirable.

Ok, I spent an hour or so trying to see if I could just use the existing
rtlwifi module with this driver, but it seems that they are using a 2
year-old version of it, so I'll have to bundle it directly into the
driver for now, along with an "odd" bluetooth sharing module.  I'll work
on making the needed changes to the driver to get it to work with
rtlwifi first, and then clean up the rest over the next few months.  I
have the hardware here to test with, so that should make it easier than
the normal staging driver work I do.

But for now, staging seems like a good idea, especially as one "distro"
is already shipping it in this form (SteamOS).

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

[Larry Finger]

On 01/22/2014 08:12 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 06:47:29PM -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
>> On 01/20/2014 01:32 PM, Greg KH wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have a box here with a Realtek 8821 wireless PCI device.  We don't
>>> seem to have a driver upstream for it yet, but there's a huge tarball
>>> from Realtek on their site.
>>>
>>> Has anyone started picking the needed pieces out of the tarball to get
>>> this merged "properly", or does this need to be done yet?
>>>
>>> Hm, I wonder if I should just dump the tarball into staging for now, to
>>> get my box working, any objections to me doing that?
>>
>> I have had contact with the Realtek developers regarding a Linux driver for the
>> RTL8821AE device with PCI ID 10ec:8821. On Dec 10, 2013, they indicated that
>> there were still 802.11ac problems, and they were not yet ready to release it to
>> me. I will write them again and check if the driver is now ready, and they just
>> forgot to send it to me. Once they are ready, they will also be sending me
>> sample devices.
>>
>> What is the URL for the driver that you found? I did a quick search on their
>> site and did not find it.
>
> It came with a device I got at a conference, along with 1,000 other
> people, so it's being used in the "wild" now, running Linux.  I'll send
> you the patch off-list as it's not small.
>
>> To answer your question, I certainly would have no objections to your dumping
>> the driver into staging. I can fix it up there as easily as in my own private
>> stores. You will, of course, get a lot more intermediate patches, but I think
>> you have already anticipated that. The PCI group usually send me mac80211-based
>> drivers, thus the residence in staging may be short, but that is desirable.
>
> Ok, I spent an hour or so trying to see if I could just use the existing
> rtlwifi module with this driver, but it seems that they are using a 2
> year-old version of it, so I'll have to bundle it directly into the
> driver for now, along with an "odd" bluetooth sharing module.  I'll work
> on making the needed changes to the driver to get it to work with
> rtlwifi first, and then clean up the rest over the next few months.  I
> have the hardware here to test with, so that should make it easier than
> the normal staging driver work I do.
>
> But for now, staging seems like a good idea, especially as one "distro"
> is already shipping it in this form (SteamOS).

Too bad I couldn't get one of those devices.

The "odd" bluetooth sharing module is part of a new driver that I am about to 
push into drivers/net/wireless to be part of 3.15. This one drives the RTL8723BE 
device, which is somewhat different from the existing RTL8723AE. Both of the 
8723 device are both wifi and BT, and it also seems that the 8821AE is also a 
dual device.

I will merge the 8821 code with my current working version of rtlwifi and 
becoexist, and send you patches for testing. I agree that staging is a good 
place for now.

Thanks for the heads-up on this matter.

Larry

Re: Realtek 8821 wireless PCI driver?

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 10:13:43PM -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 01/22/2014 08:12 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 06:47:29PM -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
> >> On 01/20/2014 01:32 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> I have a box here with a Realtek 8821 wireless PCI device.  We don't
> >>> seem to have a driver upstream for it yet, but there's a huge tarball
> >>> from Realtek on their site.
> >>>
> >>> Has anyone started picking the needed pieces out of the tarball to get
> >>> this merged "properly", or does this need to be done yet?
> >>>
> >>> Hm, I wonder if I should just dump the tarball into staging for now, to
> >>> get my box working, any objections to me doing that?
> >>
> >> I have had contact with the Realtek developers regarding a Linux driver for the
> >> RTL8821AE device with PCI ID 10ec:8821. On Dec 10, 2013, they indicated that
> >> there were still 802.11ac problems, and they were not yet ready to release it to
> >> me. I will write them again and check if the driver is now ready, and they just
> >> forgot to send it to me. Once they are ready, they will also be sending me
> >> sample devices.
> >>
> >> What is the URL for the driver that you found? I did a quick search on their
> >> site and did not find it.
> >
> > It came with a device I got at a conference, along with 1,000 other
> > people, so it's being used in the "wild" now, running Linux.  I'll send
> > you the patch off-list as it's not small.
> >
> >> To answer your question, I certainly would have no objections to your dumping
> >> the driver into staging. I can fix it up there as easily as in my own private
> >> stores. You will, of course, get a lot more intermediate patches, but I think
> >> you have already anticipated that. The PCI group usually send me mac80211-based
> >> drivers, thus the residence in staging may be short, but that is desirable.
> >
> > Ok, I spent an hour or so trying to see if I could just use the existing
> > rtlwifi module with this driver, but it seems that they are using a 2
> > year-old version of it, so I'll have to bundle it directly into the
> > driver for now, along with an "odd" bluetooth sharing module.  I'll work
> > on making the needed changes to the driver to get it to work with
> > rtlwifi first, and then clean up the rest over the next few months.  I
> > have the hardware here to test with, so that should make it easier than
> > the normal staging driver work I do.
> >
> > But for now, staging seems like a good idea, especially as one "distro"
> > is already shipping it in this form (SteamOS).
> 
> Too bad I couldn't get one of those devices.

They all seem to be sold-out at the moment, if I hear of a way to get
any more, I'll be sure to let you know.

> The "odd" bluetooth sharing module is part of a new driver that I am about to 
> push into drivers/net/wireless to be part of 3.15. This one drives the RTL8723BE 
> device, which is somewhat different from the existing RTL8723AE. Both of the 
> 8723 device are both wifi and BT, and it also seems that the 8821AE is also a 
> dual device.
> 
> I will merge the 8821 code with my current working version of rtlwifi and 
> becoexist, and send you patches for testing. I agree that staging is a good 
> place for now.

Wonderful, I didn't want to deal with becoexist at all, I'll gladly let
you do that :)

thanks,

greg k-h