Realtek RTL8723BE/RTL8188EE 802.11b/g/n wireless drivers

[LumiteDubbz]

Hi there, Linux Mint Forums!

I've been desperate to make the change over to Linux for months now but my laptop's wireless card has always screwed me over. My laptop, the HP 15-bw029na has the Realtek RTL8723BE/RTL8188EE 802.11b/g/n wireless network card and the drivers are available here. I was originally going to use Kali Linux (I'm not new to PCs and I am by no means a newbie) but I as well as others online could not get ndiswrapper to install, so I switched to Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon x64 but STILL cannot install ndiswrapper. As per the installation tutorial, I am supposed to run

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sudo make uninstall

which worked, but then

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sudo make

, after running for a few seconds produced this error:

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make -C utils
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/will/Desktop/ndiswrapper-1.61/utils'
gcc -g -Wall -I../driver -o loadndisdriver loadndisdriver.c
loadndisdriver.c:15:20: fatal error: stdlib.h: No such file or directory

I am at my wit's end with this because I just want to use Linux Mint! Can anyone please help? Thanks, Will.

Edit: I managed to install ndisgtk but whenever I ran it and typed in the admin password, it wouldn't open. I tried reinstalling but now, of course, the ethernet is only working for a few seconds when I boot up. then it just says it's connecting and does nothing. I am so infuriated right now, some one please help.

[thedeerhunter270]

I have a RTL8723be in my laptop. I find the drivers are installed ok.

But the card has two antenna ports - and the wrong one is selected. Not sure if this is the issue you've been having.

The way I do it is thus:

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723be
sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=1

Worth a go...

[LumiteDubbz]

I have a RTL8723be in my laptop. I find the drivers are installed ok.

But the card has two antenna ports - and the wrong one is selected. Not sure if this is the issue you've been having.

The way I do it is thus:

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723be
sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=1

Worth a go...

Hi, thanks for the response.
I ran both of those commands and restarted my laptop. Nothing changed. In my driver manager, the wireless card doesn't even show up.
Any other suggestions? Thanks.

[thedeerhunter270]

Unfortunately that all I've needed to to to get the wifi working. Your wifi maybe on either port 1 or 2, so this maybe worth trying

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sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=2 

A restart undoes the work too - you have to add entry in the etc folder to make it permanent.

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echo "options rtl8723be ant_sel=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723beant.conf 

And it seems kernel 4.13 breaks the ant_sel=1 options - I'm on 4.10

[LumiteDubbz]

I am installing Debian now and I have just encountered an error that may offer some insight:

"Your network is probably not using the DHCP protocol. Alternatively, the DHCP server may be slow or some network hardware is not working properly."

[LumiteDubbz]

Unfortunately that all I've needed to to to get the wifi working. Your wifi maybe on either port 1 or 2, so this maybe worth trying

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=2 

A restart undoes the work too - you have to add entry in the etc folder to make it permanent.

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echo "options rtl8723be ant_sel=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723beant.conf 

And it seems kernel 4.13 breaks the ant_sel=1 options - I'm on 4.10

Ok, thanks for the help so far. This is so strange!
Will