Realtek wireless chipsets: draft how-tos (work in progress)


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Caution: the draft tips on this provisional page are raw material. They're as yet untested, unedited and lack explanation.

.... nevertheless, they're promising and generally well worth a try. Make a Timeshift snapshot before you apply them, though. Good luck!

Contents of this page:

Driver for the Realtek RTL8188CUS and RTL8192CU WiFi chipsets (draft, untested!)

1. Proceed like this:

a. Blacklist the rtl8192cu driver, thus forcing it to run on the better rtl8xxxu driver:

echo "blacklist rtl8192cu" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Press Enter.

b. Reboot and test.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8188EU WiFi chipset (draft, untested!)

2. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one:

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

git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8188eu

cd rtl8188eu

make

sudo make install

echo "blacklist r8188eu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/r8188eu.conf

d. Reboot and test.

GitHub repo gone? Driver copy dating from August 2, 2022 on my Google Drive.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8188FU WiFi chipset with ID 0bda:f179 (draft, untested!)

3. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelebek333/kablosuz

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install rtl8188fu-dkms

d. Reboot and test.

GitHub repo gone? Driver copy from August 3, 2022 on my Google Drive.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8192DU WiFi chipset (draft, untested!)

4. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one:

sudo apt-get install build-essential git dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8192du.git
cd rtl8192du
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe rtl8192du

GitHub repo gone? Driver copy from August 2, 2022 on my Google Drive.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8821CU WiFi chipset (draft, untested!)

5. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one:

sudo apt-get install build-essential git dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
git clone https://github.com/cilynx/rtl88x2bu.git
cd rtl88x2bu
VER=$(sed -n 's/\PACKAGE_VERSION="\(.*\)"/\1/p' dkms.conf)
sudo rsync -rvhP ./ /usr/src/rtl88x2bu-${VER}
sudo dkms add -m rtl88x2bu -v ${VER}
sudo dkms build -m rtl88x2bu -v ${VER}
sudo dkms install -m rtl88x2bu -v ${VER}
sudo modprobe 88x2bu

GitHub repo gone? Driver copy from August, 2 2022 on my Google Drive.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8812AU WiFi chipset (draft, untested!)

6. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one (use copy/paste to transfer them to the terminal):

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install git build-essential dkms

git clone https://github.com/gnab/rtl8812au.git

sudo cp -r rtl8812au /usr/src/rtl8812au-4.2.2

sudo dkms add -m rtl8812au -v 4.2.2

sudo dkms build -m rtl8812au -v 4.2.2

sudo dkms install -m rtl8812au -v 4.2.2

d. Reboot and test. Your WiFi chipset should work now.

(obsoleted)

7. Obsoleted.

Bluetooth driver for the Realtek RTL8852AE, RTL8852BE and RTL8852CE chipsets (draft, untested!)

8. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one:

sudo apt-get install make gcc linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential git
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw89-BT.git
cd rtw89-BT
make
sudo make install

d. Reboot and test.

e. When successful: blacklist future kernel updates in Update Manager, because the driver you've installed is strictly for your current kernel.

Driver for the Realtek RTL8812BU and RTL8822BU WiFi chipsets (draft, untested!)

9. Proceed as follows:

a. Establish temporary internet connection by means of your cell phone.

b. Execute this terminal command (use copy/paste to transfer it to the terminal):

sudo apt-get install mokutil && mokutil --sb-state

Press Enter.

If it reports that Secure Boot is enabled: reboot and disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. In order to do this, you might need to set an administrator password in the BIOS first.

No worries: although Secure Boot is a fairly reasonable idea in theory, it provides little real-life security anyway. So disabling it is no loss. In practice, Secure Boot is primarily an obstacle for using another operating system than Microsoft Windows. Which might or might not be an intended side effect.

c. Then execute the following terminal commands, one by one (use copy/paste to transfer them to the terminal):

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential

mkdir -p ~/src

cd ~/src

git clone https://github.com/morrownr/88x2bu-20210702.git

cd ~/src/88x2bu-20210702

sudo ./install-driver.sh

d. Reboot and test.

Two important PPAs for Realtek WiFi drivers

10. These are two important PPAs for Realtek wifi drivers:

The PPA of Larry Finger (lwfinger)

The PPA of Nick (morrownr)


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