Slackware :: Realtek RTL8185 -- Rtl8180 Module Locking System Up On Slack 13?

an old Compaq Presario 8000, which I reluctantly took, as I tend to end up with more computers than I use and more or less end up acting as a disposal agent. It's a 2.4Ghz machine, which will suffice for whatever I felt like installing on it.I have a generic wifi pci card with a Realtek RTL8185 chipset in it, which I never used and thought I'd set up that computer with it. Hadn't installed Slackware 13 on anything, and it's a distro I like so I went at it.Install went well, no problems there, but I've used Slackware for about 9 years so I'm readily familiar with that end o' things.

I found the rtl8180 module to be causing problems. It would load on boot, but wouldn't bring up a wireless interface. I was able to remove the module with 'rmmod rtl8180' well enough, but when I would load it again with 'modprobe rtl8180', the system would lock. Tried that a few times, same result. I ran across mention of a driver on Realtek's web site, so I downloaded and installed it. That one is identified as 'r8180'. I added 'rtl8180' to the module blacklist to prevent it from being loaded at boot, and proceeded to set up wpa_supplicant.conf for my WPA-PSK connection. Came up without a hitch.The connection is stable thus far, with a respectable link quality. The Realtek driver can be found here.I thought I might document my solution here in case someone else runs across the same issue that I experienced.I'm thinking of slapping another wireless NIC in that computer, or perhaps testing with multihoming possibly. This computer will probably end up as an AP for relaying my wireless traffic to an AP downstairs. I have one USB NIC (Alfa AWUS036S)with a 5dB antenna that has a strong signal, but the ones of more a common variety could use a little help