Realtek RTL8188EE Laptop Wi-Fi Does not Work on Xbuntu 12.04

[tjones10]

I am unable to get the Realtek RTL8188EE Wi-Fi adapter on my HP ENVY 17t-j000 Quad Edition laptop to work on Xbuntu 12.04. The Network Manager applet does not show any "Wireless Network" options, nor are any networks listed. When I have searched the web I have found very limited information about running this card on Linux. A previous post on this forum seems to deal with a similar issue but there were no responses to that thread.

I have attempted to use NDISwrapper to load a windows driver for the card, as per the instructions on the Ubuntu wiki.. A usb wi-fi adapter works. My current Xbuntu install is fresh and I have had this laptop for less than a week. NDISwrapper loaded the driver but the card did not work. I have also tried to use the Wi-Fi on other Linux distros, but none of them have worked. The Wi-Fi worked on the (now removed) windows 8 install that came with the laptop.

The relevant output of lspci is as follows

0.8:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8179 (rev 01)
0.9:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5227 (rev 01)

The output of iwconfig on Xbuntu is as follows

lo no wireless extensions
eth0 no wireless extensions


The output of iwlist scan is as follows

lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Thanks for your help in advance.

[varunendra]

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EDIT: The official driver from Realtek site is now outdated and not compatible with the latest kernels. If the patch suggested in step 3 in this post doesn't help compiling it without errors, please try the solution by Dr. Chili555 in post #11, which is probably a better fix anyway.
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I am unable to get the Realtek RTL8188EE Wi-Fi adapter......
.....
0.8:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8179 (rev 01)

If you are sure about the chip, then you should be able to get it working with the proprietary Linux driver downloaded directly from realtek's site (RTL8188CE). That package is actually a collection of some common realtek drivers including RTL8188EE.

But to install it, or any other driver, you must first completely purge the ndiswrapper driver (including its configuration folder in /etc directory). Once done, install the above driver as -

1) Download it from : http://152.104.125.41/downloads/down...oads=true#2722 and copy it to your desktop (it's about 12 MB download).

2) Right-click the downloaded file (linux_mac80211_0012.0207.2013.tar.bz2) > "Extract here". This will extract a folder named "rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_88ee_linux_mac80211_001 2.0207.2013" on your desktop.

3) Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run following commands :

cd ~/Desktop/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_88ee_linux_mac80211_0012.0207.2013
make
sudo make install

4) Reboot or manually load the driver with -

sudo modprobe -v rtl8188ee

Let me know if you need more help with any of the steps above, or if there are any errors in the process.

[john_richardson2]

Can you instruct me on how to purge the driver and folder?

[varunendra]

Can you instruct me on how to purge the driver and folder?

If you have not tried installing ndiswrapper (which you don't seem to have), just follow the instruction steps 1 to 4 and ignore the ndiswrapper part. If there are any errors (I suspect there may be, due to kernel changes), post back in your original thread : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2176052

[Mike_H.]

I created an account just to be able to log in and thank you as this post helped me as well!

I tried to get this card to work for about a week... then gave up. That is until I tried again just now cause I'm stubborn!

[varunendra]

I created an account just to be able to log in and thank you as this post helped me as well!

That is so nice of you Mike !

Thanks for the feedback, and Welcome to the forums !!

[mosaphire]

Hy! I have a new HP 15 Pavilion Notebook. I removed Windows 8 and installed Ubuntu 12.04. I have the same problem with the wifi connection, I tried your steps, and downloaded the drivers but in step 3:
cd ~/Desktop/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_88ee_linux_mac80211_0012 .0207.2013
make
sudo make install

The terminal says: the folder or directory doesn't exists. Then it also says: there's no makefile.

What can I do? I have RTL8188EE

[chili555]

Hy! I have a new HP 15 Pavilion Notebook. I removed Windows 8 and installed Ubuntu 12.04. I have the same problem with the wifi connection, I tried your steps, and downloaded the drivers but in step 3:
cd ~/Desktop/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_88ee_linux_mac80211_0012 .0207.2013
make
sudo make install

The terminal says: the folder or directory doesn't exists. Then it also says: there's no makefile.

What can I do? I have RTL8188EE

I recommend the procedure in my post #11 above instead.

[varunendra]

I recommend the procedure in my post #11 above instead.

+1

[tjones10]

That driver worked. Thanks for your help.