Re: [PATCH rtw-next v7 0/6] wifi: rtw88: add RTL8723B/RTL8723BS support

["Luka Gejak" <luka.gejak@linux.dev>]

October 3, 2026 at 23:26, "Bitterblue Smith" <rtl8821cerfe2@gmail.com mailto:rtl8821cerfe2@gmail.com?to=%22Bitterblue%20Smith%22%20%3Crtl8821cerfe2%40gmail.com%3E > wrote:


> 
> On 02/10/2026 10:38, Luka Gejak wrote:
> 
> > 
> > This is the second of two series adding support for the Realtek RTL8723B
> >  802.11n chipset and its RTL8723BS SDIO variant to rtw88. The preparation
> >  series has landed in rtw-next, so this series carries the chip register
> >  definitions, the BB/RF/AGC tables, the chip driver, the SDIO bind and the
> >  build glue.
> >  
> >  The first patch is the only shared-core change. It moves the CCK power
> >  detect setter out of rtw88xxa.c into phy.c as rtw_phy_cck_pd_set(), so this
> >  chip can use it without pulling in rtw88_88xxa. The six chip patches apply
> >  on top of it and can be read on their own.
> >  
> >  The driver supports:
> >  
> >  - RTL8723B / RTL8723BS, SDIO only
> >  - 2.4 GHz 802.11n, HT20 and HT40
> >  - one spatial stream
> >  - station mode
> >  
> >  Only station mode has been validated. The common rtw88 core advertises AP
> >  and IBSS for all chips, so those modes are advertised for RTL8723BS as
> >  well, but neither has been tested. An out-of-tree tester has reported AP
> >  mode associating without DHCP completing. The five additional SDIO IDs are
> >  included for parity with the existing staging driver, and only the 0xb723
> >  device has been exercised.
> >  
> >  The chip driver requests:
> >  
> >  rtw88/rtw8723b_fw.bin
> >  
> >  This is the version 41 firmware extracted from the Realtek rtl8723bs
> >  vendor driver. It was submitted separately to linux-firmware with its
> >  extraction provenance and carries Ping-Ke Shih's Reviewed-by. There is no
> >  known native rtw88 RTL8723B firmware.
> >  
> >  The implementation is based on the initial RTL8723B work by Michael
> >  Straube:
> >  
> >  https://github.com/mistraube/rtw88/tree/rtl8723bs
> >  
> >  Michael's Co-developed-by and Signed-off-by tags are present on the three
> >  chip-code patches containing code derived from that work.
> >  
> >  The known limitations are unchanged. Bluetooth coexistence depends on the
> >  BT firmware's status reports. During A2DP streaming those reports identify
> >  a connected link but do not expose the active profile, so the WiFi
> >  coexistence logic cannot make a correct traffic-aware decision. WiFi
> >  throughput can fall sharply while audio remains smooth. This is documented
> >  rather than guessed around in the WiFi driver. The intermittent RTL8723BS
> >  firmware failure to leave LPS also remains, and instrumentation shows a
> >  firmware stall rather than a polling timeout that a longer budget would
> >  fix.
> >  
> >  Testing
> >  =======
> >  
> >  The exact six-commit branch builds with W=1, with no new warnings, and
> >  links all rtw88 modules with real modpost. Sparse and smatch were run over
> >  the rtw88 directory. Sparse is clean. Smatch reports nothing in the 8723B
> >  files, and its only output is an existing container_of static assertion
> >  from include/net/neighbour.h while checking usb.c. checkpatch --strict is
> >  clean apart from the complex-macro report on TRANS_SEQ_END, which is an
> >  initializer macro that rtw8703b.c already defines in the same way, and the
> >  "does MAINTAINERS need updating" reminder on the file-adding patches, which
> >  the existing REALTEK WIRELESS DRIVER (rtw88) entry already answers with its
> >  F: line. git diff --check is clean and all six commits are GPG-signed.
> >  
> >  Hardware validation covered module identity, boot, scan,
> >  authentication, association, WPA2 key negotiation and DHCP, TCP and UDP
> >  traffic in both directions, ten scans while connected, and twenty module
> >  reload and reassociate cycles. dmesg is clean, with no warnings, no errors
> >  and no TX-report, H2C or leave-LPS messages. The extended soak added six 30
> >  second TCP runs, UDP saturation in both access categories with no loss, a
> >  2000 packet ping run with no loss, and three idle power save periods with a
> >  clean wake. The test machine provides only s2idle, so suspend and resume
> >  are not covered.
> >  
> >  Changes in v7:
> >  - dropped rtw8723b_sdio_restore_pad_ctrl() and its two remaining call
> >  sites. The register it adjusted is only written by
> >  rtw_mac_pre_system_cfg(), which returns before that write for 8051
> >  chips, so nothing in the driver sets the bits the function cleared and
> >  the hardware default already has them clear.
> >  - rtw8723b_fill_txdesc_checksum() now uses fill_txdesc_checksum_common()
> >  from tx.h. The now unused linux/unaligned.h include is dropped.
> >  
> >  Luka Gejak (6):
> >  wifi: rtw88: move the 88xxa CCK power detect setter to phy.c
> >  wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B register definitions
> >  wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B BB, RF and AGC tables
> >  wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B chip driver
> >  wifi: rtw88: 8723bs: add the RTL8723BS SDIO bind
> >  wifi: rtw88: 8723bs: enable building the RTL8723BS driver
> >  
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/Kconfig | 18 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/Makefile | 6 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/phy.c | 39 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/phy.h | 1 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/reg.h | 34 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.c | 2550 +++++++++++++++++
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.h | 14 +
> >  .../wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.c | 861 ++++++
> >  .../wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.h | 17 +
> >  .../net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723bs.c | 59 +
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8812a.c | 2 +-
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8821a.c | 2 +-
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88xxa.c | 38 -
> >  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88xxa.h | 1 -
> >  14 files changed, 3601 insertions(+), 41 deletions(-)
> >  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.c
> >  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.h
> >  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.c
> >  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.h
> >  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723bs.c
> > 
> Looks good to me.
> 
> Reviewed-by: Bitterblue Smith <rtl8821cerfe2@gmail.com>
>

Hi Bitterblue,

Thanks for all of the support and help along the way.
(And for the Reviewed-by tag.)

Best regards,
Luka Gejak