# what modules required in kernel for wlan[solved rtl8723ae]

## padoor

i use toshiba sattelite C855D-S5232 laptop.

recently i ad to change my rouer-modem due to modems power supply failure.

bought a new power supply but it does not work with the modem beetel 220BXI ADSL2+

now i bought beetel 450 tc2 . t has 4 port ethernet ports and wlan.

i want to make use of wifi 

what kernel modules needed to make wlan connection?

any help appreaciated

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## eccerr0r

Need your lspci information, or lsusb if your wifi is connected via USB, to get what kind of wifi adapter you have

So you never got your wifi working before?  Just curious if it was something broke versus a new setup...

http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/C850/C855D-S5232/

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## padoor

```
gentoo@Gentoo-11 ~ $ sudo su 

 Gentoo-11 gentoo # lspci 

 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Complex 

 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 9809 

 00:01.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Wrestler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6250/6310] 

 00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson SATA Controller [AHCI mode] 

 00:12.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:12.2 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:13.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:13.2 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson SMBus Controller (rev 14) 

 00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson Azalia Controller (rev 01) 

 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson LPC Bridge (rev 11) 

 00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson PCI Bridge (rev 40) 

 00:14.7 SD Host controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson SD Flash Controller 

 00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 43a0 

 00:15.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 43a1 

 00:16.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:16.2 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 

 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43) 

 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1 

 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2 

 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3 

 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4 

 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6 

 00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5 

 00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7 

 02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8723 

 06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 05) 

 Gentoo-11 gentoo #
```

i did not have a wireless modem before. i was using desktop with wired internet.

as i changed the modem i got one with wifi also.

it is not becuse brken configuration. but new wfi try on my new laptop.

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## eccerr0r

 *lspci wrote:*   

>  02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8723 

 

This is your wifi adapter.  Apparently this is fairly new and from a cursory search, this is first supported built-in, in Linux-3.8.

Apparently rtlwifi works with this device, but it might need the rtl819x module...

I think the other default settings for wifi works or it will pull in the right ones automatically, you should try it and see what it does, there's a whole bunch of dependencies (80211 stuff) that tend to be pulled in correctly.

You probably need to also emerge the linux-firmware package as well.

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## padoor

i have tried with 3.8.3 and 3.9.0 kernels with rtl8723ae module compiled in the kernel

driver loads ok but no wlan0

both fails to make wlan0 device

how can i trouble shoot this problem?

```
dhcppc0 ramaswamy # modinfo rtl8723ae

 filename: /lib/modules/3.8.3-gentoo/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8723ae/rtl8723ae.ko

 firmware: rtlwifi/rtl8723aefw_B.bin

 firmware: rtlwifi/rtl8723aefw.bin

 description: Realtek 8723E 802.11n PCI wireless

 license: GPL

 author: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>

 author: Realtek WlanFAE <wlanfae@realtek.com>

 author: lizhaoming <chaoming_li@realsil.com.cn>

 alias: pci:v000010ECd00008723sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

 depends: rtlwifi

 intree: Y

 vermagic: 3.8.3-gentoo SMP mod_unload K8 

 parm: swenc:Set to 1 for software crypto (default 0)

 (bool)

 parm: ips:Set to 0 to not use link power save (default 1)

 (bool)

 parm: swlps:Set to 1 to use SW control power save (default 0)

 (bool)

 parm: fwlps:Set to 1 to use FW control power save (default 1)

 (bool)

 parm: debug:Set debug level (0-5) (default 0) (int)

 dhcppc0 ramaswamy # 
```

 it seems it is default not on

 how or where i configure this driver ?

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## eccerr0r

most of the wifi drivers I've seen at least would detect the HW without config, whether or not it works is another problem.

So when the module is modprobed, what does it report in dmesg?  Is it completely "hardware not found" (wrong driver?)

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## padoor

```
8.038131] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.

[    8.038142] rtl8723ae: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723fw_B.bin

[    8.038211] radeon 0000:00:01.0: irq 42 for MSI/MSI-X

[    8.038233] radeon 0000:00:01.0: radeon: using MSI.

 8.713016] rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723fw_B.bin not available

[    8.793589] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  Cruzer Blade     1.26 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5

[    8.793925] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

[    8.795354] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 15633408 512-byte logical blocks: (8.00 GB/7.45 GiB)

[    8.796460] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off

[    8.796469] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00

[    8.798208] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

[    8.803451]  sdb: sdb1

[    8.806691] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

[    9.198273] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 170x48

[    9.207982] radeon 0000:00:01.0: fb0: radeon
```

the above is from dmesg 

it is looking for rtl8723fw_bin

modprobe rtl8723ae has no complaint.

what do i do now

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## padoor

made some progress

i copied the rtlwifi folder from downloaded linux-firmware

and now  get  

```
dhcppc0 ramaswamy # ifconfig wlan0 up

dhcppc0 ramaswamy # iwconfig

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  

          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   

          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          

sit0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

dhcppc0 ramaswamy # 
```

what further can be done to configure wlan0 ?

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## eccerr0r

Looks like you're most of the way there.

Now you need to know how you configured your access point (WEP, WPA, etc.)

At this point the path diverges depending on how you want to configure it...  I took the easy way out as my wireless clients are laptops and they have GNOME installed, so networkmanager and its GUI nm-applet made it very easy to configure.  I've heard wicd works well too for non-GNOME/KDE installs.

If you don't have encryption turned on (not recommended!) all you would need to do is

iwconfig wlan0 essid <your ssid>

and things should start working (IIRC.)  You should be able to run DHCP at this point.

WEP is not too much more (also not recommended)

iwconfig wlan0 key 0 <your-wep-key>

Likely you're using WPA/WPA2 and you need to use wpa-supplicant which I haven't used directly before -- networkmanager dealt with it automatically...

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## padoor

thanks for your reply above eccerr0r

i emerge wicd and it promptly scanned and found my modem wifi among others

soon i put in the psk password it connected.

thanks for a replies

 :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

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## 666threesixes666

glad to see your on the right track....  id advise against using wicd as your primary connection method.  it works, though networkmanager's had more consistent solid performance for me.

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## padoor

i will try the networkmanager too

i have gnome installed.

this is 64bit version of gentoo on amd64

thanks very much 666threesixes666

 :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

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## padoor

i will try the networkmanager too

i have gnome installed.

this is 64bit version of gentoo on amd64

thanks very much 666threesixes666

 :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

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## 666threesixes666

merge nm-applet to manipulate network manager through the gui.  (networkmanager might pull it in)  id follow the wiki to install it....

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/NetworkManager

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## eccerr0r

Yes, if you're using Gnome you should be using networkmanager.  The nice thing about it is that it's very well integrated with dbus so networkmanager can signal network features as it goes up and down - it's very slick.  Props to Redhat for writing this.

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