rtl8723be wifi card

9 risposte [Ultimo contenuto]
massi76
Offline
Iscritto: 08/13/2018

i have a notebook hp (G4) with a pci wifi card who need a non-free software rtl8723be driver
i use this with a usb wifi-pen free (ar9170), but is possible to have thertl-driver in a new kernel-libre in the future??

nadebula.1984
Offline
Iscritto: 05/01/2018

Most non-Atheros WLAN cards do have free/libre drivers, and I believe that these free/libre drivers do exist in the kernel.

But non-Atheros cards can't work without non-free firmware. In other words, without non-free firmware, those free/libre drivers are useless.

chaosmonk

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/07/2017

> i have a notebook hp (G4) with a pci wifi card who need a non-free
> software rtl8723be driver

Some Realtek WiFi cards do work without non-free firmware. A friend of
mine has an rtl8188ee, which is functional, though not always reliable,
with Trisquel. I have not tested the rtl8723be, so I cannot promise
that this will work, but you might try installing the latest
Linux-libre.

If that doesn't work, please tell us the exact model of your laptop.
That will determine what your other options are.

nadebula.1984
Offline
Iscritto: 05/01/2018

He said that his notebook belongs to the HP G4 series.

Unfortunately, HP notebooks are heavily encumbered by whitelist restrictions. Unless this series has ath5k/9k cards approved by HP's firmware, it's impossible to replace the WLAN card with a free/libre one.

chaosmonk

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/07/2017

> Unfortunately, HP notebooks are heavily encumbered by whitelist
> restrictions. Unless this series has ath5k/9k cards approved by HP's
> firmware, it's impossible to replace the WLAN card with a free/libre
> one.

Do you have a list of which laptop manufacturers do and don't impose
whitelist restrictions? I know that HP and Lenovo do. Are there any
who don't?

Also, have you yourself written or considered writing any documentation
or guides about migrating to free software and free-software-compatible
hardware? You have a lot of knowledge, and it has been helpful in many
threads here, and I think there would be a lot of value in an organized
consolidation of that knowledge.

nadebula.1984
Offline
Iscritto: 05/01/2018

If (information on) legacy hardware is still important to free/libre software users, I'd like to summarize something, but mainly about legacy ThinkPads.

I haven't used many computing devices other than ThinkPads, and have been troubled by the whitelist restrictions for many years. Yet there are some manufacturers (or at least part of their product lines) don't impose restrictions on WLAN cards.

For example, I once tried Dell Latitude and Alienware series, as well as Samsung 9-series. They seem don't have whitelist restrictions, so I could install ath9k cards on them. Please note that some ultra-portable notebooks, like Samsung 9-series Haswell models, use integrated WLAN cards (i.e., soldered on the board) so that you can't possibly replace them. I once found a Samsung 910S3G (Haswell ULV but without Boot Guard, on-board Atheros AR9565). Its integrated WLAN is a free/libre one, but too weak (single antenna, single band). I didn't purchased it but selected 900X3D with IvyBridge ULV and replaceable WLAN card.

BTW, one major weakness of my Samsung 900X3D (and other IvyBridge 9-series) is that it uses HM75 chipset and therefore doesn't have native USB3.0. This causes certain compatibility issues with USB booting. Relatively few USB 3.0 flash media are bootable on it. Some of them may even cause POST fail.

massi76
Offline
Iscritto: 08/13/2018

thanks at all, i have installed the latest kernel-libre 5.4.1-gnu2 019-11-29 15:57 (linux-libre), but not see the device, the pc is a hp G4 with rtl8723be wifi-card

Processor 2x Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N3050 @ 1.60GHz Memory 3877MB (669MB used) Operating System Trisquel GNU/Linux 8.0, Flidas User Name massi (massi) Date/Time dom 01 dic 2019 11:23:19 CET Display Resolution 1366x768 pixels OpenGL Renderer Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 400 (Braswell) X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation Multimedia Audio Adapter HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH

carl9170 Atheros AR9170 802.11n USB wireless (wifi-pen-usb)

rtl8723be Realtek 8723BE 802.11n PCI wireless (wifi pci card)

jxself
Offline
Iscritto: 09/13/2010

Then it probably needs a proprietary program in order to function, which is why it does not work. It should be possible to confirm this by doing:

dmesg | grep -i deblobbed

And then share the output.

massi76
Offline
Iscritto: 08/13/2018

this is a collage of infos trisquel and ubuntu mixed (for the wlan0 i don't know how show you)

massi76
Offline
Iscritto: 08/13/2018

i understand. i think is not possible in the future too... ok, i use the wifi-pen, like now...