I recently decided to make the plunge and install ubuntu 11.10 (32 bit) on my desktop. All went smoothly except for one bug: I couldn’t get Internet.
I use a wireless USB stick by edimax (it is called IEEE802.11b/g/n nano USB adapter or also EW-7811Un). The problem was that Ubuntu seems to be able to use the USB to see the networks around me, but when I tried to connect to my network (either when the router had the password on or off) – it just kept trying and failing to connect.
This is apparently a known bug which can be resolved after following some good leads from ubuntuforums (thanks the user “praseodym” for your help) and askubuntu (thank you user Engels Peralta for your help).
Bellow are the steps I needed to take in order to solve the problem in the smoothest fashion – I hope others might benefit from it in the future.
Step 0: get a network cable
In order to solve this issue you will need Internet. Get a network cable which you can physically connect to your router. Once you have Internet access the following steps are much easier to follow.
Step 1: make it easy to open terminal window in a specific folder location
This step is important since it makes several other steps easier to manage.
The instructions on how to do it are given here. You simply need to open a terminal window (press CTRL+ALT+T), and type:
sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal
From now on, whenever you want to open a new terminal window in a specific folder – you simply right-click that folder (from the folder which is a level above it) and choose “Open in Terminal”
Step 2: Download the latest edimx drivers
Go here, and download the driver.
Step 3 is not needed
Update: The current new drivers (Jan 2012 – version 3.3.2_3192) seem to work fine without needing to edit them. You will likely need a system restart later…
Step 3: Edit the driver files
The drivers as of today (that is, the driver which is in the file “RTL8188CU_linux_v3.1.2590.20110922.zip”) will not work “out of the box” for ubuntu 11.10 and will need to be (slightly) modified.
Unzip the driver folder, and then go to the archive driver/rtl8192_8188CU_linux_v3.1.2590.20110922.tar.gz inside the driver folder (which is likely to be called “RTL8192CU_8188CUS_8188CE-VAU_linux_v3.1.2590.20110922″ inside your download folder) There you will need to edit two files (simply browse there and double click the files to have them open in gedit for editing):
file 1: include/rtw_io.h
Change osdep_service.h (line 36) linux/smp_lock.h to linux/smp.h
file 2: include/osdep_service.h
Change file rtw_io.h (line 49) linux/smp_lock.h to linux/smp.h
Step 4: Install the new driver
Go to the download folder and open (using right click, if you followed step 0) the terminal for the folder “RTL8192CU_8188CUS_8188CE-VAU_linux_v3.1.2590.20110922″. Then run:
sudo bash install.sh
(note 1: it will ask for your user’s password – as will any command which is using the sudo = super user do prefix)
(note 2: in order to paste in the terminal, use ctrl+shift+v instead of just ctrl+v as is in the GUI and other editors)
Step 5: blacklist the old driver
Next, we want to edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf Getting there using the GUI wouldn’t work, because ubuntu wouldn’t let us save the changes we will make. Instead, just open the terminal and type:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Go to the end of the file and add the line:
blacklist rtl8192cu
(thanks goes to icracked for the advise)
Step 6: remove and re-insert the network USB (and reboot)
Once done – I was finally able to see and connect to my home Internet network.
At this point, some people also said reboot helped, so if you got this far, why not do that too…
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Last thanks also goes to Ethan Shalev, Eran Vered, Gadi Esterin, and Gil Bahat – for caring and trying to help through facebook. And also to Tomer Cohen, for spending some good quantities of time trying to help me (and also showing me some cool things on the way).
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If you get to know of any better solutions, or if the problem is already fixed (or simply if this post helped you) – feel welcome to leave a comment 
