Realtek RTL8822BE Support Coming To Linux 4.14

For those with a system containing the new Realtek RTL8822BE wireless chipset, initial support for it will be found with the upcoming Linux 4.14 LTS kernel.

The RTL8822BE is a new ASIC from Realtek supporting 802.11ac, MU-MIMO, and Bluetooth 4.1. There are USB and PCI Express versions of this wireless adapter.

In recent months as this WLAN chipset has begun appearing in different devices, there have been users looking for a driver while one is coming for Linux 4.14.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has queued the new r8822be into his staging-next code. "The RTL8822BE, an 802.11ac wireless network card, is now appearing in new computers. Its driver is being placed in staging to reduce the time that users of this new card will have access to in-kernel drivers. This commit enables building of the new driver. For this version, all routines are built into a single module r8822be. When this driver is moved to the wireless tree, halmac, phydm, and rtl8822be will become new modules."

So if you have this WiFi/Bluetooth adapter, look for it in staging with Linux 4.14 and will be exposed via the R8822BE Kconfig switch.