HP Laptop running Kubuntu 24.04 isn't able to use its Realtek RTL8152 wireless adapter. As a test to check if it was a hardware issue, I reinstalled Windows11 and went through the setup process, and the WLAN adapter worked without any additional drivers needing to be installed, and showed all my local available WiFi networks. I reinstalled Kubuntu, and ran into the same issue again: no visible WiFi networks, and no option to even turn on WiFi anywhere in the settings. The issue is isolated to the WiFi adapter; the laptop can utilize ethernet without any problems and is online with a USB ethernet adapter.
I have gone through the standard steps outlined in other similar, older threads here and made sure that the linux-modules packages are current.
sudo dpkg -s linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r) | grep Status
Status: install ok installed
linux-modules-extra-6.8.0-62-generic is already the newest version (6.8.0-62.65).
lsusb yields the following, showing that the adapter is visible:
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0408:548f Quanta Computer, Inc. HP True Vision HD Camera
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:b86a Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 214b:7250 Huasheng Electronics USB2.0 HUB
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 090c:2320 Silicon Motion, Inc. - Taiwan (formerly Feiya Technology Corp.) USB_Flash_Disk
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 046d:c534 Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 0e8d:1887 MediaTek Inc. Slim Portable DVD Writer
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 0bda:8152 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8152 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
However when I use the nmtui tool, both the WiFi and WWAN options show a "hardware missing" message despite both being enabled.
sudo lshw -class network yields the following:
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: ioport:f000(size=256) memory:fcf00000-fcffffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: b
bus info: usb@3:2.4.3
logical name: enx00e04c36499c
serial: 00:e0:4c:36:49:9c
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 100Mbit/s
capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8152 driverversion=v1.12.13 duplex=full ip=192.168.110.140 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s```
sudo lspci -vnn | awk -vRS= '/\[0280\]/' showed the following output:
DeviceName: Realtek Wireless LAN + BT
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:88e9]
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 255, IOMMU group 8
I/O ports at f000 [disabled] [size=256]
Memory at fcf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1M]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [148] Device Serial Number 00-e0-4c-ff-fe-88-52-01
Capabilities: [158] Latency Tolerance Reporting
Capabilities: [160] L1 PM Substates```
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