Lenovo B575e - WLAN (ubuntu thinks it is Broadcom, but it is Realtek)

**Ninnus** · February 17th, 2013

Hi,

my boyfriend bought a Lenovo B575e, that came pre-installed with Windows 8. Naturally we replaced it with Ubuntu.

But Ubuntu has decided to use a wrong driver for wireless and I think it sees a wrong device as well.

The laptop has this wireless component physically;
"Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter"
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/...90/components/
(It is also on the manufacturers driver page)

But Ubuntu says this;
*-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
version: 01
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=bcma-pci-bridge latency=0
resources: irq:17 memory:f0100000-f0103fff

We downloaded the RTL8188CE driver, and built it, but I don't know where to go from here. Somehow it must replace BCM4313?

(Note, in Windows it uses the Realtek driver - and it works - if Windows 8 can be said to be working)

I don't know that much about Linux, only Windows, DOS and z/OS (mainframe programmer here, hi!)

I am sure that we have the RTL8188CE source built correctly, using the correct libraries etc., and it should be in fine shape. What I am unable to figure out, is how to force Ubuntu to use that for the device.

Any advice?

**chili555** · February 17th, 2013

It may have a Realtek ethernet card, and versions of the B575-series may be available with a Realtek wireless, but it doesn't have a Realtek wireless card. It has a Broadcom. Please run and post:

Code:

lspci -nn | grep -e 0200 -e 0280

If the Broadcom is what I think it is, it's fairly easy to get going.

z/OS (mainframe programmer here, hi!)

Awesome. Can we do all this with machine code? That would be fun. Then let's port Ubuntu to 24-bit!!

**Ninnus** · February 17th, 2013

Code:

louis@Louis:~$ lspci -nn | grep -e 0200 -e 0280
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 07)
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01)

I only write in COBOL & PL/1, not machine code (yet)

**chili555** · February 17th, 2013

Hook up that ethernet temporarily and do:

Code:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe wl

Your wireless should now be humming along.

Time to take up c++ and python!

**Ninnus** · February 17th, 2013

Thanks, that worked perfectly!

I can do C/C++, but I hate Python because when I studied CS my algorithms professor would do algorithms in a tenth of the lines that I did them with in C++. But mine ran faster