Network interfaces not working on Toshiba Satellite C855-S5347 dual boot

Hey everybody,

So I just bought a toshiba satellite C855-S5347 with the intention of using it primarily as a unix laptop.

I set it up as a dual boot with the pre-installed windows 8. I disabled the secure boot from the UEFI interface, installed 12.04.2 LTS, but then had my hopes crushed...

While the install went smoothly, when I booted up in Linux it recognizes _neither_ network interface, wired or wireless!

The Ethernet card is a Qualcomm Atheros AR8162/8166/8168 (NDIS 6.30)

The wireless is a Realtek RTL8723AE

No clue how to proceed other than to trade this thing in...

Thanks in advance for the help,

-Joel

Networking is an issue, with neither ethernet Atheros 8161 nor wireless Realtek 8723AE working. Googled for info on the RTL8723 and found that while
nothing is available directly from Realtek, a dropbox tarball ostensibly from a Realtek technician did have the source for the driver and its firmware --
rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_linux_mac80211_0007.0809 .2012.tar.gz

Put the tarball on a USB data drive, bring it to the Toshiba, and unpacked it. Looked at the code, added -m64 to my driver Makefile since I know it is for a 64 bit system (but that's probably not necessary, try without and if it doesn't work, add it), and made the driver

make

and installed it:

sudo make install

Reboot or add the module yourself
sudo modprobe rtl8723e

Now network-manager should start scanning, and give you a list of access points.

Once connected, update the system, and the new kernels will include the alx driver for the ethernet.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade