12.04 LTS, Toshiba Satellite L850, RTL8111/RTL8168 WiFi non existent.

[chili555]

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ sudo modprobe rtl8192ce
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

When the terminal comes back blank, that means, roughly, 'command executed as requested and I have no errors or warnings to report.' That's exactly what we want!

what is the "key" to press to bring the terminal without having to the "dash" to fetch it?

Ctrl+alt+t.

Let's poke around a bit. Please post:

iwconfig
dmesg | grep rtl
rfkill list all

The pipe symbol | is on the right side of my US keyboard on the same key with \. Thanks.

[Tristan57]

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ iwconfig
eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ dmesg | grep rtl
[ 19.778687] rtl8192ce: ****** This B_CUT device may not work with kernels 3.6 and earlier
[ 19.778689] rtl8192ce: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin
[ 19.797891] rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin not available
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ rfkill list all
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

[chili555]

rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin not available

Ah, ha! Finally we see it! With the ethernet cable attached, please do:

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware
sudo modprobe -r rtl8192ce && sudo modprobe rtl8192ce

Are we there yet??

[Tristan57]

Yeahhhhh, we have progress. I can now see the "enable wireless" in the top right corner. Can't see the router though
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ sudo apt-get install linux-firmware
[sudo] password for tristan:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
linux-firmware is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-3.2.0-38 language-pack-kde-zh-hans-base lib32gcc1 dkms
linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic language-pack-kde-en linux-headers-3.5.0-23
kde-l10n-engb linux-headers-3.2.0-38-generic language-pack-zh-hans-base
kde-l10n-zhcn language-pack-zh-hans language-pack-kde-zh-hans
language-pack-kde-en-base
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ sudo modprobe -r rtl8192ce && sudo modprobe rtl8192ce
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

[Tristan57]

Arggghhhhhh, I rebooted the modem and the computer and the wireless option is gone

[chili555]

Arggghhhhhh, I rebooted the modem and the computer and the wireless option is gone

May we see some diagnostics?

sudo modprobe rtl8192ce
dmesg | grep rtl

[Tristan57]

Of course you may (Boy, you are so patient!) Thank you so, so much.

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ sudo modprobe rtl8192ce
[sudo] password for tristan:
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ dmesg | grep rtl
[ 21.665541] rtl8192ce: ****** This B_CUT device may not work with kernels 3.6 and earlier
[ 21.665542] rtl8192ce: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin
[ 21.718105] rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin not available
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

[chili555]

rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin not available

What..?? I thought it had firmware??? Is it not grabbing it when it actually exists?

ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi | grep B.bin

If linux-firmware didn't install it, we can get and install it for you.

[Tristan57]

Ahahahahah, if you say so... whatever "firmware" is.

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi | grep B.bin
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

Still can't see any wireless option.

[chili555]

tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$ ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi | grep B.bin
tristan@tristan-Satellite-L850:~$

That means the firmware is not present. Please download the file I've attached and drag and drop it to your desktop. Right-click it and select Extract Here. Now back to the terminal:

cd Desktop
sudo cp rtlwifi/* /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/

If you get any warnings that a file already exists and do you want to over-write it, say Yes. Now unload and reload the driver:

sudo modprobe -r rtl8192ce && sudo modprobe rtl8192ce

Now are we there?

EDIT: Off for the evening. See you tomorrow.