Since 2017 in Linux 4.12 has been the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver where it was introduced into the staging area and remains there nearly a decade later. The rtl8723bs driver for this Realtek 802.11n WiFi SDIO driver has seen [1]a lot of code cleaning over the years and all these years later still is [2]needing lots of code clean-ups from unnecessary code abstractions to [3]dealing with malicious WiFi APs for what Greg Kroah-Hartman has called [4]a "beast of a driver" . The latest twist is there now being patches for adding Realtek RTL8723BS and RTL8723B onto the existing RTW88 driver.

While there is the RTL8723BS staging driver, Luka Gejak has been working on adding support for the Realtek RTL8723B 802.11n chipset and its RTL8723BS SDIO variant to the better-supported RTW88 driver.

With around 5.6k lines of new code, the RTW88 driver can support the RTL8723B and RTL8723BS 802.11n WiFi chipsets but so far only tested in SDIO configuration with PCIe and USB variants not yet tested/enabled. The driver has also been only tested in STA mode with AP and IBSS not yet being verified and there are also known hardware/firmware issues around WiFi and Bluetooth co-existence.

In any event for those still leveraging 802.11n WiFi hardware with either the RTL8723B or RTL8723BS, [5]this patch series is the latest work in the effort to tack the hardware support onto the RTW88 driver. It will be interesting to see if this work matures enough to be mainlined and then potentially seeing it replace the long-staged RTL8723BS beast driver.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.17-Staging

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-Staging

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Realtek-RTL8723BS-WiFi-Bad-APs

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.2-Staging

[5] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260722200337.135150-1-luka.gejak@linux.dev/