Realtek RTL8723AE wireless drivers

[varunendra]

I suppose trying the proprietry driver couldn't hurt, could you take me through that?

Sure. The default package from realtek has not been adapted for the latest kernel versions yet, so we shall need to do some modifications manually (step 3 below) in order to be able to compile it successfully (source of proposed modifications here).

Here are the instructions to download and compile the driver on Ubuntu 13.04 -

First, make sure the components required for compiling a package are installed on the system. To ensure that, get connected to internet > Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) > run the following command -

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential

Now the steps for the driver -

1) Download the RTL8188CE driver package for Linux from here : 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) > click "Extract here". This will extract a folder named "rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_88ee_linux_mac80211 _001 2.0207.2013" on your desktop.

3) Now open the "pci.h" file from the extracted directory above, and add following lines below the line #31 (that says - "#define __RTL_PCI_H__")-

#ifndef __devinit
#define __devinit
#define __devinitdata
#endif

Proofread, save and close the file.

4) 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

5) Reboot or manually load the driver with -

sudo modprobe -v rtl8723e

Watch out for errors during the whole process, post back if there are any.

If you still can not connect after a reboot, run the script again and post back its fresh output.

Btw, does the script tell you what driver is in use when the USB tethering is used to get a connection? Would it just be the USB driver?

The "nm-tool" part of the script output tells you the currently available connections and drivers in use. You can use the command "nm-tool" independently to get that.

[actionmystique]

Hello @varunendra,

I experience the same prtoblems with my Realtek RTL8723AE NIC as many other people on Ubuntu 13.10.
I tried to download the proprietary driver package "RTL8188CE-VAU" from Realtek site and extracted it, but the reference to "RTL8723AE" is gone.

Any hint about where we could locate the correct package?

[varunendra]

I tried to download the proprietary driver package "RTL8188CE-VAU" from Realtek site

Wrong package! The correct one is RTL8188CE, the section ABOVE RTL8192CE-VAU or RTL8192CE-VA4 sections. If you clicked at the link I gave in my previous post, the table opens right at the top of screen, you'll have to scroll up a bit to see the section name.