I recently compiled and installed a new kernel and new rtl8192cu (8192cu.ko) driver and today I had a chance to test them. I had NO Problems getting wlan0 up an running. When I did ifup, I got some error messages but the process started and worked. I rebooted (sudo shutdown -r now) and it worked fine. The kernel was 3.2.33-psp26.1 the Realtek source was dated 20121105. When you compile the driver, you need to tell the Makefile where the kernel source is so decided to get the latest and compile both. I don’t know how necessary this is. I just copied Molloy’s video because I don’t know any better. I found the video extremely useful. At this point I do not have it configured to startup automatically so I used ifup.