drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187 · keep-annotate

Realtek RTL8187 and RTL8187B USB Wi-Fi adapters

Realtek's RTL8187 and RTL8187B chipsets powered a wave of cheap USB 802.11b/g Wi-Fi dongles in the mid-2000s, capping out at 54 Mbps. They appeared in countless no-name USB sticks and were a longtime favorite in the hobbyist and security-testing community for their monitor-mode and packet-injection support.

keep-annotate conf=0.80 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=net category=networking-wireless

80%

recommendation

Worth keeping but documenting its niche: the hardware is firmly legacy 802.11b/g gear that nobody buys new, yet the code is still maintained, picked up a real bug fix backported to stable in 2026, and saw cleanup work the same year. OpenWrt still ships it as kmod-rtl8187, and there is no in-tree replacement for the same chipset, so removing it would strand existing users of these dongles for no real benefit.

repository signals

9 files

3,364 source lines

14 commits, 5y

+44 / −26 lines added / removed, 5y

12 authors, 5y

monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 14 total · active in 11/61 months

sources

lore.kernel.org
Upstream still touches rtl8187 in 2026; recent linux-wireless patch against dev.c was a cleanup, not a removal series.
lore.kernel.org
The driver received a 2026 stable backport for a real bug fix in rtl8187_rx_cb(), indicating maintained code with active users.
cateee.net
LKDDb identifies CONFIG_RTL8187 as support for Realtek 8187/8187B USB devices and lists mostly older 54 Mbps-era products.
openwrt.org
OpenWrt still ships kmod-rtl8187, which is evidence of continued legacy deployment in router/embedded hobbyist use.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Real driver directory confirmed from local path and module_usb_driver in dev.c via shell rg. lore_file_timeline on dev.c showed fresh 2026 cleanup and stable bug-fix traffic, with no removal evidence in the returned activity. Deployment looks legacy-but-nonzero: LKDDb page and its old device examples were obtained by web search, and OpenWrt package page was obtained by web search. 'hardware_still_sold_new_in_2025=false' is an inference from the chipset being 802.11b/g-era USB hardware with only legacy ecosystem evidence, not current mainstream product evidence. No natural in-tree replacement for the same chipset family was found, so replacement_driver=null.