RealTek 8821CE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCI-E NIC driver (Linux)?

[dedanna1029]

Just ran the latest Fedora XFCE Live disk on my new laptop, and ONCE AGAIN, the wireless isn't recognized.
The specs on this thing are at the link for my new laptop.
What else do you need to troubleshoot this? Or do I need to go straight to hunting Adam Williamson down after all these years, and get a bug report filed? I can get whatever else you might need from Windows. In the meantime, I'm going to install Cygwin again... may need Fedora files.

Thanks.

[dedanna1029]

Sorry, now that I've calmed down, I'm going to go back through this thread, and grab the commands to run that I'll need outputs of for this thread.

[dedanna1029]

Info that I could finally find from Windbloze. You may need to zoom these. Next up, getting info from the Live Fedora disk (it is not installed yet):

[R_Head]

Wow Adam Williamson... what a great guy! He helped me a lot and when he lost his job with Mandriva, I send him some cash to help the "Linux Monkey".

I wonder how he is doing now days.

[dedanna1029]

Me too - I'm not 100% that he's even still with Fedora.

Edit: Evidently, that's a yes.

He's also here, here, and quite a few other places. So, I think I will contact him.

[R_Head]

I forgot his Happy Assasin site saw the Mandriva Monkey icon on your 3rd link

Glad that he is doing fine

[dedanna1029]

So, question, for anyone that can help: Is this specific NIC supposed to be supported by Linux at this time?

[dedanna1029]

I have changed the title of this thread to just say "Linux" instead of Fedora. I've just run the Linux Mint 9.3 live XFCE disk, and wireless didn't work on it either, but everything else did. I'm betting they forgot to include this driver in the kernel, so here we go again. I did get the info that Linux Mint had on it. It is seeing the NIC, but isn't seeing the wireless.

Code: Select all

System:    Host: mint Kernel: 5.0.0-32-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.1 tk: Gtk 3.22.30 wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM
           Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81N3 v: Lenovo IdeaPad S145-15AST serial: <filter>
           Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo IdeaPad S145-15AST serial: <filter>
           Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0R32866WIN serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO
           v: AYCN21WW date: 12/27/2019
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 30.4 Wh condition: 30.4/30.0 Wh (101%) volts: 8.6/7.5
           model: SMP L16M2PB1 serial: <filter> status: Full
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: AMD A6-9225 RADEON R4 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G bits: 64
           type: MCP arch: Excavator L2 cache: 1024 KiB
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 10380
           Speed: 2994 MHz min/max: 1300/2600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2994 2: 2993
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Stoney [Radeon R2/R3/R4/R5 Graphics] vendor: Lenovo driver: amdgpu
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.0 chip ID: 1002:98e4
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD STONEY (DRM 3.27.0 5.0.0-32-generic LLVM 8.0.0)
           v: 4.5 Mesa 19.0.8 direct render: Yes
Audio:     Device-1: AMD vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.1
           chip ID: 1002:15b3
           Device-2: AMD Family 15h Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
           bus ID: 00:09.2 chip ID: 1022:157a
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.0.0-32-generic
-->Network:   -->Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lenovo
           driver: N/A port: 1000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:c821<--
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 935.26 GiB used: 1.88 GiB (0.2%)
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000LM035-1RK172 size: 931.51 GiB
           speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> temp: 36 C
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB model: General size: 3.75 GiB serial: <filter>
Partition: ID-1: / size: 1.66 GiB used: 26.5 MiB (1.6%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102
USB:       Hub: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0002
           Hub: 1-1:2 info: Advanced Micro Devices ports: 4 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 0438:7900
           Device-1: 1-1.2:3 info: Realtek type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 1.1
           chip ID: 0bda:c024
           Device-2: 1-1.3:4 info: Chicony type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0
           chip ID: 04f2:b624
           Device-3: 1-1.4:5 info: Sunplus Innovation Optical Mouse type: Mouse
           driver: hid-generic,usbhid rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1bcf:0007
           Hub: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0002
           Device-4: 2-2:2 info: Unknown type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage rev: 2.0
           chip ID: abcd:1234
           Hub: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0003
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 52 C
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
           1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 19.3 _Tricia_ - Release amd64 20191213]/ bionic contrib main non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
           1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com tricia main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http: //archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
Info:      Processes: 166 Uptime: 4m Memory: 3.31 GiB used: 587.4 MiB (17.3%) Init: systemd v: 237
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 alt: 7 Client: Unknown python3.6 client inxi: 3.0.32


Here's the rub. I have no earthly clue where to file the bug. Mageia was the most helpful last time, but the current disk isn't even booting (7.1). I've tried both Legacy and UEFI on in UEFI Firmware settings, and Secure Boot is off. I tried it on, too. I'm also set to USB boot first, and the system still passed right on by it on boot.

Anyone have any answers? Thanks.

P.S.: For the meantime, I'm going to try out EndeavourOS live, and see if it comes up with wireless.

[dedanna1029]

WELL, WELL, WELL, *ahem* GRRRRR...

Won't be added until sometime later this year. Ain't that nice. Not. There is NO support for this NIC.

Also see here.

[dedanna1029]

I finally found something from Fedora. Problem is, it's for version 30, the one I have is 32. I wonder if it would still work.

Installation Of Driver
git clone https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce
cd rtl8821ce
chmod +x dkms-install.sh
chmod +x dkms-remove.sh
sudo ./dkms-install.sh

Removal Of Driver (if needed in the future)
cd rtl8821ce
sudo ./dkms-remove.sh

I f Wi-Fi is not enabled after rebooting, toggle the Airplane mode key on the keyboard.```
Make sure Secure boot is disabled in the bios.
That's about all.

There are some other interesting things about this as well in that thread.

https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/install ... ra-30/3672

Interesting about secure boot. I keep turning the damn thing off, but it doesn't stick. I think it's my virus scanner playing with it. I've turned it off twice now, and gone back to find it on. I finally switched to legacy mode. I'm going to see if that did it.

[dedanna1029]

Make sure Secure boot is disabled in the bios.

Interesting about secure boot. I keep turning the damn thing off, but it doesn't stick. I think it's my virus scanner playing with it. I've turned it off twice now, and gone back to find it on. I finally switched to legacy mode. I'm going to see if that did it.

HHMMM...

[dedanna1029]

Legacy sticks. So, I guess the only thing left to do is get a driver for this thing, which still ain't happening. I emailed Adam, with no response. I've researched it upstream. I'd try to write a better one than the ones they're working on, but I have too much going on with a real job and life. I guess I get to wait on SOMEONE to do something. Someone preferably upstream.

I also want to find out why they are stalling on this thing. Why not write one for Linux? Also, my Windows one works perfectly fine in Windows. So, there's that.