[ubuntu-uk] Zoostorm laptop at ebuyer.com

[Paula Graham]

On 01/02/13 16:18, Rowan Berkeley wrote:
> On 01/02/13 15:54, Paula Graham wrote:
>> I dunno, doesn't seem a huge burden to me - the driver's in a handy
>> folder - it takes all of 20 secs to compile - prefer it to opening a
>> brand new laptop with a perfectly good Realtek chip (and I'm clumsy
>> with hardware). Will just tolerate mild inconvenience, upgrade when
>> 13.04 comes out with kernel 3.8 and native driver - problem solved,
>> feisty laptop with no MS tax for under £400 ;) Paula 
>
> Well, then, Paula, may I request you write a Wireless Installation
> Wizard, of as general application as possible, ie providing guidance
> for everybody with a converted machine and no wireless, with all the
> commands listed verbatim, for those of us confused by the scrappy and
> conflicting instructions on how to do it that are scattered across
> Ubuntu Forums? For my part, I have downloaded a copy of "The Linux
> Command  Line" by William E Shotts, which will gradually teach me how
> to do all this for myself. I stress: gradually

OK sorry - it sounds grim but it's really easy to compile it once you've
managed to find the wretched driver in the first place. Verbatim
instructions plus chatty asides below cos it's Friday and I'm about to
quit for the week wheeeeeeee!

If your chip's the same as mine it's easy cos I know where the driver
is, if not, you'll have to track it down (if I happen to read my email
lists at the time I'll help).

First you have to find out which wireless chip you have. Open a shell
(ctl+alt+t) type:

lspci

at the prompt - it'll spit out a list of PCI devices among which the ID
of your wifi chip should be found. It might not say 'wifi' but it's the
networking chip that *isn't* ethernet. Google with the chip's model for
the driver. On my Zoostorm, lspci lists the driver like this:

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8723

So in my case I googled this string: "realtek 8723 driver linux" and
found a bunch of people disagreeing confusingly in various forums -
after reading and inwardly digesting I gleaned that there are currently
two versions of the driver, one for kernel 3.2 and one for kernel 3.5.
To find out which one you want, do this command to find out which kernel
you have:

uname -r

To which my Ubuntu 12.04 replies: 3.2.0-37-generic

(No, Alan, I'm not going to upgrade my kernel to a release candidate for
3.8 on my main production laptop lol - I'm going to wait for Ubuntu 13.04)

So this means I need the kernel 3.2 driver

Found this driver in a very helpful person's post at the bottom of the
page here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/139632/wireless-card-realtek-rtl8723ae-bt-is-not-recognized
- it's shared in someone's Dropbox but there's testimony from someone
who'd already used the driver without having their laptop eaten by
monsters so I downloaded it. I can confirm that no disaster occurred
after installing it. If your chip is the same, type this command in your
terminal to download it and unpack it (it's all one line, the email is
wrapping it):

wget -O-
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57056576/DRIVERS/REALTEK/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_linux_mac80211_0006.0514.2012.tar.gz
| tar -xz

Once you've got your mitts on the driver the hard bit is done and you
won't have to do it again as long as you still have kernel 3.2 (this
probably won't change on Ubuntu 12.04 - the upgrades are incremental but
the version stays the same). Now change directory to the driver's folder
with th 'cd' command:

cd /path/to/driver

The real command will probably look something like this because the
driver folder has a somewhat overly informative name:
cd
/home/myname/Downloads/rtl_92ce_92se_92de_8723ae_linux_mac80211_0006.0514.2012

Once you're in there, type these commands one by one, waiting till
Ubuntu finishes chewing each command:

sudo make
sudo make install

Then do this command to make Ubuntu load it (it'll load automatically on
subsequent reboots):

sudo modprobe rtl8723e

And you're done. Ubuntu immediately starts scanning for the network.

On subsequent recompiles, assuming you kept the driver folder, all you
have to do is change to the folder and run just the 3 simple commands:
make, make-install and modprobe rtl8723e - if you can't remember the
module number (I can't!) the commands should still be loitering about in
the BASH history - scroll up with the up key till you find them or just
make a note of the command somewhere so you can just paste it in again
;)  If stuck, this command:

lsmod | grep wifi

will give you the driver module's ID: rtl8723e

It's mildly annoying but pretty quick. Any attempt to automate it IMHO
will most likely result in a wasted afternoon smacking your forehead
against the wall plus possible remedial cos you've made a mess.

Or you can take Alan's advice and upgrade your kernel to 3.8 release
candidate and see if the driver's really there, for the good of the
community ;) 

So, less confusingly chatty recap:

1. find and download the driver

2. change to driver's folder in a terminal

3. sudo make

4. sudo make-install

5. sudo modprobe [module ID]

Paula