Bug#629428: linux-image-2.6.32-5-686: rtl818x broken for RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g

[Bertrand Marc <beberking@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Same problem for me, using the rtl8180 module with a Trendnet 423PI 
(with a rtl8185 chipset) mostly time out. Sometimes it associates with 
the AP but the connexion is low, it drops randomly and it fails to 
associate again. It is well described on Ubuntu :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/290325

On 32bits platform, users usually fall back to ndiswrapper and stop 
complaining. But on 64bits platform, the only solution for me was to use 
the driver provided by Realtek :
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=1&PFid=1&Level=6&Conn=5&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#RTL8185L 
<http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=1&PFid=1&Level=6&Conn=5&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#RTL8185L>
It needs a little patch to build on 2.6.32 but works fine, and provide 
WEP and WPA connection at a good rate.

I also want to point out this Realtek driver seems to be based on the 
free http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/ driver.

It seems to me rtl8185 and rtl8180 are not realy compatible... Do you 
think it is possible to merge the Realtek driver for 8185 chipsets into 
the (Debian) kernel ?

Thanks,
Bertrand