I’ve never been able to use the Linux driver for my RTL 8185 in Ubuntu.  Instead, I’ve used Ndiswrapper with the Windows XP driver.  It works great.

Here’s the download for the XP driver: rtl8185

Once you have that, you’ll want to install NdisWrapper.  Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Once you have ndiswrapper installed, unzip the file you downloaded and change your terminal to that directory.  Then install the drivers with these commands:

sudo ndiswrapper -i net8185.inf

sudo ndiswrapper -m

sudo ndiswrapper -mi

sudo ndiswrapper -ma

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

At this point, you should be able to use your wireless card.  If you type “ifconfig” in your terminal, you should see “wlan0″ listed.

This has worked every time for me, so I hope it solves any issues you are having with this card too!

EDIT:

If everytime you reboot, you have to run ’sudo modprobe ndiswrapper’ command, try adding ndiswrapper to your  /etc/modules file.

To do that:

Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

Add a line and type ndiswrapper

Save and close the file.

Reboot.