How to get the RTL8187B working in Ubuntu and LinuxMint

        In most distributions of Linux some problems with the hardware that comes in-built with laptops in most cases it was the wireless cards. I ran across smiler kind of a scenario when I got my PROLiNK Netbook which has a RTL8187B based wireless card. My problems started when I installed Ubuntu as my primary OS my wireless card ran in to lot of troubles the native driver that comes with the distribution doesn't work that efficiently. The Linux driver for Realtek 8187B is not exactly the driver that comes from relatek company it's a tweaked rtl8187 driver that tend to work with 8187B wireless cards. But the thing is it doesn't work properly the driver cant resolve IP's from the AP and cannot connect to the network if the receiver isn't right next to the signal transmitter.

       So I went searching through forums googled till it can't provide me with an answer any more. In forums no one was able to answer my problem there was no replies at least not even one. At that point I thought I need to find solution or a work around my self so I went on journey in search of a answer for this question. That was the time I came across "ndiswrapper" which is a wrapping program that let you use the windows XP driver in your Linux environment.

      I downloaded this and installed it also I followed the instruction to the tooth it started to work without any problems with the 9.04 and 9.10. Along came the change Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS from canonical I did the usual just like I did in the earlier distributions I installed wrapper and give the drivers from realtek but alas nothing I got the same usual problem I was so cross with my self I could kick my netbook but I didn'r held my nerve and started to dig deeper in to the problem then I came across a bug report in Ubuntu official bug squad which said stated that we might have to black list rtl8187 driver as well so this is what I did to solve my problem.

Step 1. Installed ndiswrapper in to my system (Before you install ndiswrapper you need to enable the universe and multiverse repository)

Code: sudo apt-get install ndisgtk

Step 2. Black listing the default driver.

Code: echo -e "blacklist bcm43xx\nblacklist b43\nblacklist b43legacy\nblacklist rtl8187" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Strep 3. Download the WindowsXP driver from Realtek.

Code: Click here to get the new driver

Step 3. Installed the driver using the ndsiwrapper.

Step 4. Now run this command to see if the driver is installed correctly.

Code: ndiswrapper -l

This will list something like this,

Code: {name of driver} : driver installed        device ({Chipset ID}) present

Step 5. Restart.

Code: sudo init 6

After the reboot you'll see all your wireless network connections and when you select one you'll get connected with out any problem.

If you're using some kind of security to secure your wireless signal you better install WICD which is little better when it comes to encrypted signals. You can install it from the Ubuntu repository.

Code: sudo apt-get install wicd -y

after installing reboot the system to get the icon in the notification area.

This article has been written based on my experiences in hoping that this might help some in the future. I wish you guys good luck and please let me know if you find a better solution than this.