wlan module not detected?
 

Hi altogether,

I´m currently trying to setup BodhiLinux for a friend of mine. She has a laptop (HP 15-db0400ng) which originally came with WIN10.

I could manage to create a bootable BodhiLinux-DVD and was able to boot into that OS. So far so good.

From that running live-system I wanted to install BodhiLinux but couldn´t as I wasn´t able to connect via WLAN.
For some reason Bodhi didn´t seem to detect the built-in WLAN.

I found out that it´s the Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11b/g/n/ac (1x1) Wi-Fi® und Bluetooth® 4.2 combined
(https://support.hp.com/de-de/document/c06067315#AbT0 ).

Neither is it possible to connect via a network cable. The problem is: my friend cannot find any ethernet cable despite the fact that she really should have one.

Is it possible that Bodhi doesn´t detect the WLAN module for some reason? Or must WLAN functionality be activated somehow beforehand?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Greetings.
Rosika :confused:

*****UPDATE*****

Oh my,

it seems like Realtek RTL8821CE isn´t natively supported by Linux after all.
On https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/WLAN/Karten/Realtek/ it says: not supported directly / driver must be installed manually .
So this would account for the problem.

Which in effect means: network-cable mandatory, otherwise driver cannot be downloaded/installed.

Or:

purchase a wlan-dongle like Netis Stick WF 2123 (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B06Y43BKQ1/...740101_TE_item )which supports Linux out-of-the-box.
That´s the one I use.

Greetings.
Rosika

Hold your horses!
RTL8821CE is in the Ubuntu hardware database.
Why do you think it can't be made to work?
Probably just some firmware missing.
If you want to go at this systematically, start by providing the output requested here.

PS: what a coincidence. Same device, different problem.

Hello ondoho,

thanks a lot for your reply.

It´s a bit of a shame but my friend really seems to lack a network-cable for connecting the laptop to the router.
Therefore:

seems difficult as the rfkill-package isn´t installed by default in bodhi (according to https://distrowatch.com/table.php?di...=5.0.0#pkglist ).

Yet next time I see my friend I´d like to try this one, as pointed out on https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....0#post13702710 :

It also says:
As bodhi uses kernel 4.15 perhaps that would be the way to go? Worth a shot?

Greetings

Rosika

Just provide the other info; mostly log output to tell us whether you aren't just missing firmware.
It really looks like this should "Just Work" on Ubuntu (and hence also on Bodhi).
OTOH, since that github repo is still maintained, there must be a reason for it, too... :scratch:

Hi ondoho,

O.K.
What I should be able to do then is posting the output of:
Yet this might take a while. The thing is: My friend lives a bit far away and so I really don´t see her every day.
And a remote maintenance tool like anydesk is out of the question as it requires internet access in the first place. :eek:

So please be patient (as I also have to be). I´ll get back to you as soon as possible.

On a sidenote:

As of late I don´t receive e-mail notifications from linuxquestions any more. Whenever there´s a new comment/answer, like yours here, I normally should be informed. That worked well in the past and I definitively didn´t change my personal settings. It´s a bit of a mystery.

Geetings
Rosika :)

after months of getting email from here, i noticed they started getting caught by the spam filter. that might be one thing you could check.

after posting in a thread, i normally see a checkmark under the thread rating indicating that i am subscribed. there is also a link in the column on the right side of the screen with some menus. under My LQ there is a Subscribed Threads link.

there is also a button at the top of each thread called Thread Tools. one of the options there is to subscribe to a thread you were not previously subscribed to or unsubscribe to one you were. perhaps a turning it off then back on might be an option if all other avenues prove unsuccessful.

Hello cordx,

thanks a lot for your answer.
Yes, I checked that already, and I am subscribed.
I checked it and - guess what - you are right by all means. That´s exactly what happened here as well. Suddenly e-mails from linuxquestions were filtered out. Using TB as an e-mail client it never occurred to me to check gmx mail using the web-interface. I guess gmx changed something lately. I managed to turn off the spam-filter functionality in my gmx-account and now I hope I´ll be getting linuxquestion-e-mails in the future.

Thanks for pointing out the problem.

Greetings
Rosika :)

When you next visit your friend, bring an ethernet cable and a usb flash drive. Ideally the cable should work, but if not, there is sneaker-net.

Run nm-applet to get the thing on your system tray to select wifi adapater. (It can be set to run automatically from startup apps in settings as 'network').

(I can't imagine not being able to find a lan cable anywhere, I'd just unplug something else if I had to.

Hi enigma9o7,

thanks for your suggestion.

I talked to my friend on the phone yesterday. I know she has got a usb flash drive. But the LAN-cable might prove to be difficult.
I myself don´t have one as my only internet-connection is via a UMTS-stick.
Yet she should have one. Anyhow, she promised to look for it. We´ll see.

Unplugging something else might not work either because it seems she doesn´t have any other appliances that need a LAN cable.

At any rate I'll see what I can do.

Tnx again and many greetings.
Rosika :)

P.S.:

If all else fails she could order such a cable via amazon.
On the other hand for almost the same price one could get the CSL - 300 Mbit s WLAN USB Stick - Adapter Stick Wireless LAN WiFi Dongle which works with linux out-of-the-box.
(https://www.amazon.de/dp/B06Y43BKQ1/...740101_TE_item )

Hello again,

in the meantime I had the chance to install Bodhi on my firend´s laptop. But I ran into difficulties:

As she wants to keep WIN10 as well I decided to go for dual-boot.

As peparation I de-activated fast-boot in WIN and disabled secure-boot in UEFI (at least I thought I did).
Later it turned out that secure-boot wasn´t disabled after all. And so Bodhi was installed with secure-boot enabled. :(
That resulted in problems.

The installation itself went well as my friend finally got a network cable which I could connect to the router.
After the installation and system-update I wanted to solve the wlan-module-problem.
I did the following:

The driver was successfully installed. But it didn´t work. The WLAN signal wasn´t found. That´s surely connected with the phenomenon of secure-boot enabled.

What I should have done (probably) is this:
because that way the boot-check by shim should be deactivated under Linux. Secure-boot in UEFI is still activated but bootloader (GRUB), kernel and kernel modules shouldn´t be checked by the shim-bootloader.
That way I would probably have gotten the wlan to work.

Yet what I did unfortunately was:

Going back to UEFI and disabled secure-boot (now for real). Afterwards a start of the laptop didn´t provide me with GRUB any more and WIN10 was booted.
So I went back to UEFI and enabled secure-boot once again. But I couldn´t get back GRUB after all. It´s still WIN10 that boots with no way of choosing the OS.

So I seems I pretty messed up things.

Has anyone a clue what to do now?

Thanks so much for your help.

Greetigs
Rosika

since the installation is fairly fresh anyways, is there much reason to muck around with trying to salvage it rather than doing another install (re-doubled effort maybe, but possibly headaches saved?) with secure boot disabled?

Hello cordx,

thanks for your suggestion.
You´re perfectly right and I was thinking about a re-install too.

The one thing that took a while during the install was the partitioning of the internal HDD. Bodhi was taking care of that.
I just had to adjust the slider in order to create 2 equally big partitions of the 1 TB-HDD. So basically 500 GB for WIN10 and Bodhi respectively.
And I think I don´t have to go through the partitioning process again.

So a fresh install would certainly be the way to go.
I was just asking my question in case that anyone would come up with another solution.

So thanks again for your advice.

Greetings.
Rosika :)

I hope that wasn't an existing Win10 install, because that would be gone now.

Hi ondoho,

perhaps I didn´t express myself correctly.

The installation routine recognized the existing WIN10 OS and proposed to install Bodhi alongside of it. Here the slider came into action. With its help I could readjust the amount of space allocated to WIN and Bodhi respectively.

Dual boot went well. And Grub showed the WIN/Bodhi entries.

Greetings.
Rosika :)