0

I have a newish HP laptop with a Realtek RTL8821CE wireless network card. It didn't work right away when I installed Ubuntu 20.04, so I followed the instructions here with success, even though those instructions were supposedly limited to Ubuntu 18.04. Fast-forward to today: I ran "sudo apt-get autoremove" as a routine matter, and noticed a message from DKMS saying that the module was being uninstalled. I suspected that this would close down my computer's wireless connection abilities the next time I rebooted, and that did happen. I am really not sure why uninstalling old kernels and such should have prompted DKMS to completely remove a module I was using, but I tried following the steps in @ThomasAFink's answer again with my current kernel ("linux-modules-5.4.0-37-generic 5.4.0-37.41", I believe). The steps worked, but DKMS ended with a message saying:

Good news! Module version v5.5.2_34066.20200325_COEX20180712-3232 for 8821ce.ko exactly matches what is already found in kernel 5.4.0-37-generic. DKMS will not replace this module. You may override by specifying --force.

I guessed that it might be fruitful to revert to the kernel version that was removed by "apt-get autoremove", so I followed these steps to determine that it was 5.4.0-31-generic, and booted into that kernel to perform the same steps again. However, DKMS has given me the same message, and WiFi still doesn't work. I have a backup, Ubuntu 18.04 installed on the same computer, which does still support Wifi with tomaspinho's driver. However, there are a bunch of annoyances associated with reverting to 18.04 - older version of Emacs, which I use quite heavily, among others - and I would like to resolve this issue in 20.04 if possible. Any ideas?

Requested edit: The output of dkms status is:

rtl8821ce, v5.5.2_34066.20200325, 5.4.0-31-generic, x86_64: installed

I'm not able to get the output of 'uname -r' through chroot, but hopefully I have made it clear which kernel versions I am working with, above.

Requested edit: Here is a log from this morning of what I did. This log has the output of uname, dkms status, and everything else. In case you're wondering how git clone worked without internet access - I'm tethering my phone.

airbornemihir
  • 73

1 Answers1

1

As we see from your paste, you followed both the sudo make install and the dkms process. That is what leads to the message:

Module version v5.5.2_34066.20200325_COEX20180712-3232 for 8821ce.ko exactly matches what is already found in kernel 5.4.0-31-generic.

In other words, dkms is not going to install it because sudo make install has already installed it.

These two methods are different ways to do the same thing; they need not be mixed and may result, as you've seen, in confusing results.

I suggest that you do:

cd ~/git/rtl8821ce
sudo make uninstall
sudo dkms remove rtl8821ce/v5.5.2_34066.20200325 --all

Confirm that it is removed:

sudo dkms status

It should return nothing. If so, try only the dkms process:

sudo dkms-install.sh
sudo modprobe 8821ce

Your wirless should now be working.

To install it for kernel version xx-37, the latest available, as far as I know, reboot into xx-37 and repeat:

cd ~/git/rtl8821ce
sudo dkms-install-sh

EDIT: In our chat we found this in your wireless info paste:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

Soft blocked:yes typically means either that Airplane Mode is set to On in Network Manager or else in Settings > WiFi. After checking and toggling both, your wireless is now working properly.

chili555
  • 61,330