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BJsgoodlife
Asked: 2018-12-06 02:03:07 +0800 CST

How can I make my Realtek RTL8821CE wireless hardware work?

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I have been looking at several websites to try and set up wifi on Ubuntu with no success. OK, this website talks about the post 18.04 way. But how do you set it up after that version? I saw this website as well, and it talks about some of the differences but I still haven't been successful yet. Here are some things I have tried to do. 

ip addr show

When I do this, I get this output: 

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
   valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
   valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp2s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether f4:39:09:22:a6:60 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Then I tried a similar command. 

ip a

When I do this, I see this output: 

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
   valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
   valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp2s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether f4:39:09:22:a6:60 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

With this command, I can see a little more information than the prior.

I have also just tried to connect using the mouse. This is what I see when I go to the WIFI in settings:

No_AdapterFor the no adapter issue, this Youtube video looked promising.

I gave this command. 

#apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

But unfortunately, it didn't work. This is the output:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package bcmwl-kernel-source
root@brian-HP-Slim-Desktop-290-a0xxx:/home/brian#

Note: I tried to install it using a live cd just to see if I could and it tried.

Here are some more things that I have done to gather information for this question. 

lspci

And this is the output. 

01:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 
802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)


rfkill list

This is the output

0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Next I did this. 

dmesg

A lot of information came up, but it was too much for this website.

I also did this. 

lsmod

Same problem, too much information and I couldn't post it. In reading some of this information. It said something was blocked because I used secureboot when I downloaded the OS. I will be honest, I don't think I know what secureboot is.I hope this information helps.

I am using a Century Link router, model number C1000A. It is not connected directly to the computer. I would be grateful to any and all who could render any kind of assistance, thank you.

wireless 18.04

3 Answers

  1. You have Realtek RTL8821CE hardware, so use the following steps:

    Open up a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and type:

    cd /tmp/
sudo apt install --reinstall git dkms build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
git clone https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce
cd rtl8821ce
chmod +x dkms-install.sh
chmod +x dkms-remove.sh
sudo ./dkms-install.sh

    Which will download the Arch source and build the driver. After the above is completed, you can insmod the driver or simply reboot.

    Warning: As you're downloading and building your own driver, ensure SecureBoot is disabled in the UEFI Firmware / BIOS if a simple reboot would not bring the desired result.

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  2. This is available as an apt package on 20.04 - Run: sudo apt install rtl8821ce-dkms, restart and you're done :)

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  3. For the package bcmwl-kernel-source to be available, you need to enable the restricted repository.

    You need to run software-properties-gtk and enable the restricted repository.

    Software & Updates

    Then you will be able to install bcmwl-kernel-source

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