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be warned: I'm a complete newbie to everything Linux, so please ELIF and I'll try to keep up :)

I'm trying to set up Lubuntu on a cheapo laptop that currently has Windows 10. I have my live USB and successfully booted Lubuntu, but while checking to ensure that everything works, I see that I can't connect to wifi. My wifi adapter (Realtek RTL8723DE 802.11b/g/n PCIe Adapter) doesn't appear on Lubuntu's Additional Drivers page, and when I run lshw -C network, this adapter is listed as "network UNCLAIMED" and doesn't list a driver. This is similar to the problem described by this user: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1314693.

So apparently this problem arises from a device with no drivers attached. The solution given in that thread seems to apply specifically to Ubuntu JauntyJackalope; so my questions are as follows:

  1. How do I determine which driver/backport/etc to install based on my distro and my network adapter, and can I just install them with sudo apt-get install? (Ideally I'd like a general way to figure it out in case I want to, say, install Linux Mint instead.)
  2. Although I can access the Internet to install things with apt, it's a pain; is there a way to load the driver onto a flash drive and install it from there?

EDIT: As requested, some more terminal output:

$ lspci -nnk | grep 0280 -A3
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723DE 802.11b/g/n PCIe Adapter [10ec:d723]
    DeviceName: WLAN
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8723DE 802.11b/g/n PCIe Adapter [10ec:d723]

$ uname -r
5.3.0-18-generic
Firefly1009
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  • Please edit your question to add the result of the terminal command: lspci -nnk | grep 0280 -A3 and also: uname -r Welcome to Ask Ubuntu. Welcome to Ask Ubuntu. – chili555 Mar 19 '20 at 20:48
  • My comments at post #7 here may be useful: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2438739&p=13939893#post13939893 – chili555 Mar 19 '20 at 20:50
  • Cheers, chili555! I'm gonna print that post out and stick it to my wall or something; exactly what I was looking for. – Firefly1009 Mar 19 '20 at 21:00
  • @Pilot6 I don’t think that was an appropriate duplicate as this question also asks how you know and can I download by USB or apt get. I tried to explain all in my answer. – chili555 Mar 19 '20 at 23:15
  • With anything related to, say, Linux Mint, you'd go to their support forum and ask. Here is the wrong place to do it. – mikewhatever Mar 20 '20 at 07:02

1 Answers1

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You could certainly download the driver to a USB drive and transfer it to the Ubuntu computer. Unfortunately, the driver has several dependencies; that is, other packages that are required to compile the driver. Those dependencies themselves have dependencies! This is known in Linux-land as dependency he**.

Here is a post that describes the USB process, although it is for a different device and driver combination. The exact driver is not appropriate to your device. Installing the driver for TP-LINK TL-WN727N on Ubuntu 14.04 Of interest to you and others is the part that says, in relation to the USB method, "Here is how to do it in about five days...maybe."

In contrast, the ethernet and terminal method takes five minutes! I asked for your kernel version, which turned out to be 5.3.0-xx, because the methods posted here on Ask Ubuntu for older kernel versions don't work with 5.3.0-xx.

With a working internet connection, open a teminal and do:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git build-essential
git clone -b extended https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
cd rtlwifi_new
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe rtl8723de

Your wireless should now be working.

You have compiled the driver for your current running kernel only. When Update Manager installs a later one, also known as linux-image, after the required reboot, re-compile:

cd ~/rtlwifi_new
make clean
git pull
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe rtl8723de
chili555
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