Re: driver support for USB WiFi RTL8188GU

From: Gary Jennejohn <garyj_at_gmx.de>
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2023 08:00:05 UTC
On Mon, 9 Oct 2023 19:31:18 +0200
Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd@quip.cz> wrote:

> Hi,
> I accidentally bought the wrong USB WiFi Realtek RTL8188GU. I thought it
> would have support in rtwn or rsu, since both drivers mention the number
> 8188, but I didn't notice that my purchased WiFi dongle has different
> letters at the end.
> Is it possible that the RTL8188GU would work with one of those drivers
> after some addition of identification, or is it a completely different
> chip and not possible to get it to work in FreeBSD?
>
> Identification of the USB WiFI dongle:
>
> # usbconfig -d ugen1.4 dump_device_desc
> ugen1.4: <Realtek DISK> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps)
> pwr=ON (500mA)
>
>    bLength = 0x0012
>    bDescriptorType = 0x0001
>    bcdUSB = 0x0200
>    bDeviceClass = 0x0000  <Probed by interface class>
>    bDeviceSubClass = 0x0000
>    bDeviceProtocol = 0x0000
>    bMaxPacketSize0 = 0x0040
>    idVendor = 0x0bda
>    idProduct = 0x1a2b
>    bcdDevice = 0x0200
>    iManufacturer = 0x0001  <Realtek>
>    iProduct = 0x0002  <DISK>
>    iSerialNumber = 0x0000  <no string>
>    bNumConfigurations = 0x0001
>
>
> I tried it with loaded modules on FreeBSD 13.2:
>
> 40    1 0xffffffff8506f000     a7c0 if_rsu.ko
> 41    1 0xffffffff8507a000    1feb0 rsu-rtl8712fw.ko
> 42    2 0xffffffff8509a000    19130 rtwn.ko
> 43    1 0xffffffff850b4000     e000 if_rtwn_usb.ko
> 44    1 0xffffffff850c2000     4ca8 rtwn-rtl8188eefw.ko
> 45    1 0xffffffff850c7000     5728 rtwn-rtl8188eufw.ko
> 46    1 0xffffffff850cd000     60a8 rtwn-rtl8192cfwE_B.ko
> 47    1 0xffffffff850d4000     5ac0 rtwn-rtl8192cfwE.ko
> 48    1 0xffffffff850da000     5fd8 rtwn-rtl8192cfwT.ko
> 49    1 0xffffffff850e0000     5fd8 rtwn-rtl8192cfwU.ko
> 50    1 0xffffffff850e6000     9d28 rtwn-rtl8192eufw.ko
> 51    1 0xffffffff850f0000     9e18 rtwn-rtl8812aufw.ko
> 52    1 0xffffffff850fa000     8d78 rtwn-rtl8821aufw.ko
>
> But it was not recognized.
>

In current (FreeBSD-15) it's in usbdevs as:

product REALTEK RTW8821CU_CD    0x1a2b  RTW8821CU_CD

You could try adding that to /usr/src/sys/dev/usb/usbdevs and then re-build
your kernel and modules and test whether it's recognized.

--
Gary Jennejohn