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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?
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Ok, you say you know you copied the file to the Desktop, so forget about the find command. I just gave that on the guess you wouldn't be sure of where the file was.
So, now it's simple, change to the Desktop directory, and run
Code:
su -c "dpkg -i /home/username/Desktop/firmware-realtek_0.43_all.deb"
So, now it's simple, change to the Desktop directory, and run
Code:
su -c "dpkg -i /home/username/Desktop/firmware-realtek_0.43_all.deb"
replace username with your username, obviously.
For some reason, I can't access the superuser on my computer. It asks for the password, I enter it, and then it says "Authentication Failure" (see attached)! I thought maybe I messed up something, so I wiped out the entire hard drive, installed the OS from anew, and then tried it again, it's still the same. Installing the OS, I only set up two passwords; one for encrypting the drive, the other one for my user account. I tried both, but the result's the same! What the hell is going on? What's the superuser password?
Trisquel uses the 'Linux-libre' kernel. This has all of the firmware, which doesn't provide source code, removed.
Installing the firmware from Debian or Ubuntu may work. Your rtl8192ce module appears to specifically try to load some free firmware but fails, either due to some driver bug or because it's not there.
Linux kernel firmware for this driver is usually found in /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/
An ls of that directory might reveal something.
As Trisquel is Ubuntu based, it may follow the same tradition of disabling the root account and relying on sudo configured to act as root where necessary.
Try preceding those commands with sudo and then enter your normal user password.
I do understand that Realtek has not released its source code, such that no matter what distro, (or no matter what OS for that matter), the driver is going to be non-free.
Most hardware vendors don't release source code. Some do, some don't. Where they don't, you get reverse engineered drivers or no support at all.
This is not a matter of 'source code' anyway. I suggest that you have been 'led astray' a little by FSF/GNU absolutism (and you're not the first).
Running a 'free' Linux distribution like Trisquel, without really understanding why is really just a comfort blanket.
To elaborate - the binary firmware is not native executable code which runs on the OS. It is loaded onto and runs on the device itself.
Your hardware is loaded with such firmware anyway, it's in the UEFI/BIOS, video card, LAN adapters, hard disks, optical drives, etc... it's even in the CPU. You don't get the source code for this either, or a choice as to where to use it or not.
Some hardware is 'firmwareless' but the same kind of firmware is loaded onto the device by the driver on initialisation of the device. This is the difference between your realtek device and say an atheros or intel device where the firmware is already on the chip.
In the ideal world all of this firmware would be open and transparent, but you have much worse things lurking in your CPU or UEFI than a bit of firmware which is loaded onto a wifi chip...
It would be less hypocritical for FSF/GNU to just not support any platforms with binary firmware - i.e. "open hardware" only. That pretty much rules out x86, ARM and most others.
My suggestion is that you install a distribution which supports your hardware and learn to configure that. You can consider Trisquel again at a later date once you have a better grasp of the basics.
Excellent post cynwulf. Very informative, and indeed thought provoking. I thank you very much for it.
Coming back to my problem, I have to admit that I am still very resistant to install a new distro just because of a wireless card problem. Learning to install a driver shouldn't be that hard in my opinion. Further, I enjoy the learning curve.
Anyhow, I did as cynwulf (and then ardvark71) has advised and ran the command.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardvark71
Hi...
Did you look at cynwulf's post (#63) above? What is the result of the command he mentioned...
Code:
sudo modprobe -r rtl8192ce && modprobe rtl8192ce
Please post or upload a screenshot of the results.
Regards...
Attached is the screenshot of the result. So what can I do now?
By the way cynwulf:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cynwulf
... you have much worse things lurking in your CPU or UEFI than a bit of firmware which is loaded onto a wifi chip...
I there a way one can get rid of those things? I've been looking into coreboot for 8 years now, but seems quite complicated. I guess that leaves folks like us with the only option of buying something preloaded, no?
What are those much worse things by the way? Closed code that we have little idea what the hell it's doing??
Last edited by Vexon; 02-14-2017 at 09:24 PM.
Reason: Correct Typo!
Coming back to my problem, I have to admit that I am still very resistant to install a new distro just because of a wireless card problem.
You may have to. I didn't know this until now but if I understand correctly from my research of the error codes you provided in your screenshot, apparently the kernel (linux-libre) is deblobbing, or essentially removing or preventing the firmware from loading by way of a deblobbing script during boot. Or the deblobbed code is altered to where is rendered unusable. I would need someone to confirm that but here's some threads that led me to that conclusion...
If that's the case, then you will either need to replace your adapter or purchase a USB adapter that does not require any non-free software to function, if you want to continue using Trisquel.
Regards...
Last edited by ardvark71; 02-14-2017 at 11:12 PM.
Reason: Added information.
Yes ardvark71, why don't we try to confirm this. Meanwhile, the links you provided seem to indicate contrary to what you say, or this is my understanding of them. Here are some quotes:
1st link:
Quote:
sometimes when you deblob some driver or whatever, you might actually break it only because you forget to clean up the code to work without the blob, and not because it depended on the blob.
but then;
Quote:
Typically if a driver gets broken to the point where it doesn't work due to the deblobbing, it would fail to compile as well ...
Then on the 3rd link:
Quote:
Does deblobbing happen at runtime too? I thought it was only during
build time.
Right, it’s at at build time, but the “deblobbing script” leaves those
“DEBLOBBED” messages in places where it has removed firmware loading
capabilities.
Also of interest might be(again from 3rd link):
Quote:
Quilíro: firmware files are searched for in the directory specified in
the /sys/module/firmware_class/parameters/path pseudo-file (see the (gnu
build activation) module.)
Could you try, as root, something like (use the right package and module
I couldn't spot anything related to a deblobbing-script at runtime on the 4th link. And indeed, 4th link seems to be a bit more technical than my capabilities it seems.
So, is there a deblobbing script during boot like ardvark71 suspects?
Last edited by Vexon; 02-15-2017 at 09:11 AM.
Reason: Fix Formatting!
Yes ardvark71, why don't we try to confirm this. Meanwhile, the links you provided seem to indicate contrary to what you say, or this is my understanding of them.
Hi...
And that could be, I'm just not sure in this case.
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