Realtek RTL8187SE

[DemoDoG]

Just my luck, I got my hands on an Acer EEE701SD which currently do not use the Atheros wirless card that is supported by madwifi.

Anyone knows if Realtek 8187SE cards can be run on FreeBSD? Perhaps with NDIS?
Can I put a request to include in CURRENT or if someone is working on it already?

[brd@]

Please search before posting..

http://freebsd.markmail.org/search/?q=realtek+8187SE&x=0&y=0

[DemoDoG]

Yeah sorry. It seems it´s not supported so I will try ndiswrapper.

[DemoDoG]

Arglebargle.. ndiswrapper didn´t do it. I guess it was a long shot since I don´t see anything at all of the wlan card in dmesg. I guess I have to live on my hsdpa modem until a driver for RTL8187 arrives - if it does :-)

[richardpl]

freebsd doesnt have ndiswrapper.
freebsd ndisulator supports usb devices only on recent 8.0

Both urtw and ndis on usb was done by same developer.

[DemoDoG]

The handbook says:
The ndis driver is designed to support mainly Ethernet and wireless network devices with PCI and PCMCIA bus attachments.
(Cardbus devices are also supported as a subset of PCI.) It can support many different media types and speeds.

Although my card is using the PCIe and perhaps that is not supported by ndis.

[richardpl]

That is from old days, PCIe should not make any differences.

your Realtek is certainly usb device.
Post output of pciconf -lv for device you want to make work with ndis.

[DemoDoG]

Thanx, I didn´t know about that command. Well it seems it has found the card atleast and that it is a networking class. Oh, how I would love this card to work :-) I´m running CURRENT.
Here is the output of pciconf -lv:

none1@pci0:1:0:0: class=0x028000 card=0x819910ec chip=0x819910ec rev=0x22 hdr=0x00

vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor'
class = network

[DemoDoG]

I tried ndisulator in FreeBSD but it didn´t work. But the card disappeard from the pciconf -lv. It´s not listed at all, anymore. Wonder if that´s good or bad? :-)

[richardpl]

How you attempted to use ndisulator, explain to me what you did and what kernel displayed.

[DemoDoG]

I used the .INF and .SYS file from the Windows XP drivers included with the computer.

The kernel module was built successfully. I did kldload rtl8287Se_sys.ko and the module is loaded but nothing more happens. Also tried entering it to /boot/loader.conf and it was loaded at boot when I restarted. But no new device has showed up. Only difference is that it disappeared from psciconf -lv.

Is there perhaps something more to do to activate it?

[richardpl]

I cant imagine how it could disappear from pciconf.
You can try to load it again booting in verbose mode first and post dmesg output after kldload somewhere ...

[danger@]

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2009-January/002416.html

[richardpl]

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2009-January/002416.html

OP said already multiple times that card is PCIe and not USB one. urtw(4) doesnt have that card number in its source code.

[DemoDoG]

Yeah I know there is no support for it in FreeBSD. I would like to give a try writing a driver myself. I have now installad Ubuntu on the machine and it found the card directly.

The command lspci in linux shows me RTL8187SE but when I rightclick on connection information when connected it says rtl8180. Either I will try do my own driver or perhaps buy a usb stick instead, but I dont like things sticking out of the computer :-)

[gianni]

Any news?
I bought a eeepc 900HD which has the "infamous" Realtek RTL8187SE.

[BRIGADA]

I managed to run rtl8187se in my FreeBSD 7.2 on the MSI Wind U100. This required to download the latest drivers from MSI (http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=6922&i=1). And then convert them via ndiscvt. Curiously, but realtek site contains an older version of drivers.

[kostas_k]

Brigada,
I find this really interesting since I have an msi u90 with this wireless device. I want to install freeBSD but the wireless driver was repelling me from doing so. I have never used BSD and I haven't found much about the ndiscvt command in Google. Would it be possible for you to post the exact set of commands that are required to perform the conversion of the driver? I have already downloaded the driver from the link you provided. I am really sorry to ask for something that is probably well known but I only have a small experience on Unix based systems such as linux, not to speak for BSD which is tera incognita for me. Thanks in advance :).
Kostas

[kostas_k]

I only found this http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=8&topic=ndiscvt which truly lays every option of the ndiscvt command on the table but I'm still not sure which one to use :(

[BRIGADA]

I have never used BSD and I haven't found much about the ndiscvt command in Google.
Just type "man ndiscvt" or "man ndisgen" in console :)
I think, second command (ndisgen) will be simple way to you.

After converting you need load driver by kldload command.

[kostas_k]

Thanks, I'll give it a try :)

[sens]

I downloaded and uncompressed this file http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=6922&i=1
but do not understand how create *so file...
anybody can give example?