Realtek RTL8188EE drivers in Xenial?

Question

I just updated my pre-Secure Boot, pre-UEFI* Toshiba 2012 Satellite P755-S5390 laptop from 15.10 to 16.04. In 15.10, the wireless adapter worked fine. Now, Ubuntu refuses to acknowledge my laptop has a wireless interface. I've rebooted many times, done the following:

apt install flashrom librtlsdr* nictools* r8168-dkms rtl-sdr rtl8812*

Which seemed to be successful, and a plethora of other things I've found on the 'net all to no avail. The Additional Drivers screen of Software and Updates has one entry, which it either claims is unknown or not working correctly.

Network Settings is short an entry (on the left, there used to be a "Wifi" device or so):

(Before you ask, no, the little plus sign is not helpful.)

I found this post where a user was having a similar issue, and they posted much data from a plethora of commands, so I'll do the same here.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Release:    16.04
Codename:   xenial

$ uname -a
Linux mint-kitty 4.2.0-36-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP 
Mon Apr 18 15:49:10 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 05)
02:00.0 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. SD/MMC Host Controller (rev 30)
02:00.2 SD Host controller: JMicron Technology Corp. Standard SD Host Controller (rev 30)
02:00.3 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. MS Host Controller (rev 30)
02:00.4 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. xD Host Controller (rev 30)
03:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04)


$ rfkill list all
<no output>

$ sudo lsmod  |grep rtl
rtl8188ee              86016  0
rtl_pci                28672  1 rtl8188ee
rtlwifi                77824  2 rtl_pci,rtl8188ee
mac80211              745472  3 rtl_pci,rtlwifi,rtl8188ee
cfg80211              557056  2 mac80211,rtlwifi


$ ifconfig
enp1s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:88:e3:12:0f:00  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

enx7a2df60b7f7a Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 7a:2d:f6:0b:7f:7a  
          inet addr:192.168.42.149  Bcast:192.168.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::6b2f:6a3c:64e2:5193/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:22512 errors:3 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3
          TX packets:27524 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:12577406 (12.5 MB)  TX bytes:5778094 (5.7 MB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:3687 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3687 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:533078 (533.0 KB)  TX bytes:533078 (533.0 KB)

$ route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
default         192.168.42.129  0.0.0.0         UG    100    0        0 enx7a2df60b7f7a
link-local      *               255.255.0.0     U     1000   0        0 enx7a2df60b7f7a
192.168.42.0    *               255.255.255.0   U     100    0        0 enx7a2df60b7f7a

$ iw reg get
country 00: DFS-UNSET
    (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (6, 20), (N/A)
    (2457 - 2482 @ 40), (6, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
    (2474 - 2494 @ 20), (6, 20), (N/A), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN
    (5170 - 5250 @ 160), (6, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
    (5250 - 5330 @ 160), (6, 20), (0 ms), DFS, PASSIVE-SCAN
    (5490 - 5730 @ 160), (6, 20), (0 ms), DFS, PASSIVE-SCAN
    (5735 - 5835 @ 80), (6, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
    (57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 0), (N/A)

$ iwlist channel
lo        no frequency information.

enx7a2df60b7f7a  no frequency information.

enp1s0    no frequency information.

$ iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

enx7a2df60b7f7a  Interface doesn't support scanning.

enp1s0    Interface doesn't support scanning.

$ cat /etc/modules
coretemp

# the following commands all return the error code 1
$ dmesg | grep rtl
1 | $ dmesg | grep wifi
1 | $ dmesg | grep wl
1 | $ dmesg | grep rtlwifi
1 | $

That enx7a2df60b7f7a device is my laptop's tether to my smartphone, which is how I'm writing this post.

How do I get my wlp2s0 / wlan0 wireless interface back?

$ lspci -knn | grep Net -A2
<no output>
$ lspci -knn | grep net -A2
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05)
    Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller [1179:fc30]
    Kernel driver in use: r8169
    Kernel modules: r8169

That is the eth0 physical ethernet device. My wireless card is referenced in /var/syslog:

$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep -e wlan0
Apr 25 08:43:32 mint-kitty kernel: [    7.498388] rtl8188ee 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0

OK, that's before the update, but there it is.

As suggested here: How to get Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188EE Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01) wireless card working on Debian Wheezy

$ locate rtl8188ee | grep -v "debug" | grep .ko
/lib/modules/4.2.0-22-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko
/lib/modules/4.2.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko
/lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko
/lib/modules/4.4.0-21-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko
/lib/modules/4.4.0-22-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko
$ sudo modprobe -v rtl8188ee
insmod /lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtlwifi.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl_pci.ko 
insmod /lib/modules/4.2.0-36-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8188ee/rtl8188ee.ko 

But the wifi adapter still doesn't work after a reboot.

---

*My laptop never had UEFI and still has just BIOS; as a result my problem is not the same as Realtek driver RTL8723BE not working in Ubuntu 16.04 (kernel 4.4).

Solution 1

I do not know if you've seen this post already or not but here goes. Link

According to the answers in that question, it seems there is a better driver available by a third party developer who maintains it in GitHub.

So open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and follow these steps:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic git dkms
git clone http://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
cd /path/to/rtlwifi_new
make
sudo modprobe -rv rtl8188ee
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v rtl8188ee

Hope this helps :)

Solution 2

So, the other answer about installing the drviers from source is definitely the right one if you don't have the driver.

In my case, all I had to do was

• take apart my laptop to make sure the wireless adapter was actually connected
• put it back together
• reboot a few times
• idly toggle the Enable WLAN setting in the BIOS to off*
• ???
• I now have WiFi.

*Yeah, that's probably a bug. Hopefully this helps another Satellite P755 owner out there.

Comments

[cat]

@Pilot6 I've edited my question

[Pilot6]

I do not see any wireless adapters. Is it a USB adapter? Then post output of lsusb.

[Pilot6]

Then post full output of lspci.

[cat]

@Pilot6 Ok, I changed it to show the full output rather than snipped.

[cat]

@Pilot6 I found a question on U&L which has given some progress, but not much.

[Steve Roome]

Please add model of laptop.

[Pilot6]

All is wrong in your output. There is no wireless adapter in lspci. The kernel version is not from Ubuntu 16.04. You probably use Mint or some other distro.

[cat]

@Pilot6 I am aware there's no wifi adapter in lspci. It's connected to the motherboard, however. The kernel version is indeed from 15.10 and hasn't changed since I updated to 16.04. I do use Ubuntu (albeit Lubuntu), not Mint. Mint doesn't even have the 4.2.0.36 kernel. I put uname and lsb_release in there, too; this is 16.04.

[Pilot6]

Ubuntu 16.04 has 4.4 kernel version.

[cat]

@Pilot6 According to apt, my system is up-to-date.

[cat]

@Pilot6 Now I'm running kernel 4.4.0-22, but I still don't have wifi.

[cat]

So, yes, I did try this, I didn't add it to my question because nothing appears to have changed after doing so. I'll upvote it because it will probably be helpful to others with this issue.

[cat]

I found it here first: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1314434/comment‌​s/…

[cat]

Bounty gotta go someplace :)

[cat]

No, it is going to you, that's what I meant c:

[coderunner]

I have the same RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controlleesr and tried the above method. Still my connection is not persistent. There is a packet loss if I do a ping. Result: 165 packets transmitted, 163 received, 1% packet loss, time 164241ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 5.053/11.794/131.199/16.516 ms. What can be a further debugging I can perform to solve this problem?