Your time is valuable. Spend it on hardware that respects your freedom. This article was last updated in 2025. For status updates, check the OpenWrt forum threads under “Atheros vs. Realtek” or the #realtek channel on the OpenWrt IRC (Libera.Chat).

But the community persists. Chinese forum users, Russian hardware modders, and a handful of GitHub archivists keep the RTL8196E breathing with backported drivers and minimal kernels. If you succeed in booting any Linux on this chip, you have accomplished something most professionals will not attempt.

But here is the brutal truth: