Zorin OS 6 Realtek wifi

A request for assistance with Linux-based Zorin OS and Realtek wifi issues was received via PM, but the required response was too long for PM. So I've started a thread for this issue in case anyone else might benefit from this issue.

Dr. S:

Of course we can help! But I'm a little confused. Are you looking to fix a graphics issue, or a wifi issue? While you mention a graphics issue, I'm not clear what your graphics issue may be. The wifi issue, however, is quite obvious. The Realtek 8188EE is a notoriously finicky device and can be quite challenging. The driver must be manually downloaded & compiled, but does work. I can point you in the right direction, but before I do, a few quick questions/comments before we send you down the rabbit hole:

1. I commend you on your choice of Zorin OS Lite. Zorin is based on Ubuntu and Ubuntu has a large user base, which comes in handy for troubleshooting; Ubuntu solutions will work for Zorin! It's a very nice lightweight distro for "windows migrators", especially useful for a Live USB! I have it installed on one of my machines and I like it a lot. But version 6 is quite old, as version 9 is the most recent. Is there any reason you chose version 6? It is POSSIBLE that the newest version of Zorin Lite will have the Realtek wifi driver already in the kernel, although I can't say for certain. Would you be willing to put Zorin 9 Lite on your LiveUSB and see if it works out of the box? We still may have to manually compile the Realtek driver, but it's a certainty in Zorin 6.

2. What are you using the LiveUSB for? Are you thinking of replacing Win8.1 with Zorin, but want to make sure Zorin is compatible with your machine first? Or is the LiveUSB just another handy tool for your toolbox, such as online banking or troubleshooting/repair, etc...? If the latter, does your LiveUSB have "persistence"; i.e. the ability to save changes to the stick? We need persistence in order to compile the Realtek driver and keep the change!

3. Depending on your expertise, comfort level, and the purpose of your LiveUSB, you may want to just plug a wifi nano-dongle into your machine for use with the LiveUSB. It's certainly simpler, although it uses up an extra USB port. I am very fond of the Bolse USB nano-dongles, as they're cross-platform compatible with Win, Mac & Linux (the Linux driver is plug-n-play!) and can be had for $15 on Amazon. Here's a link to what I use: http://www.amazon.com/Bolse®-300Mbps-Wireless-N-Micro-Adapter/dp/B00DTZYHX4

An Edimax wireless (same page) is even less obtrusive, less expensive, and is also Linux compatible.

Depending on your answers above, I would recommend the following, in increasing order of complexity of solution:

1. Install Zorin 9 Lite on LiveUSB with persistence (newer kernel may already have Realtek driver)
2. If Zorin 9 does not have Realtek built-in (as Zorin 6 does not), consider Bolse or Edimax plug in wifi dongle, which absolutely have built-in plug-n-play compatibility and are also cross platform compatible for use in other machines/Operating Systems.
3. If #1 fails and #2 isn't an option, here's the solution for Realtek driver, which WILL work with a LiveUSB with persistence, but is a PITA (just a fair warning): http://askubuntu.com/questions/337785/wireless-not-working-on-toshiba-satellite-c55-a5281

Ignore the part about toshiba, as it's irrelevant; the Realtek wifi chip and driver instructions apply to all Realtek devices, regardless of Toshiba, Dell, HP, etc... manufacture. Let me know what you want to do or, conversely, how you made out!

Good luck!
Jim

 

Thx for the speedy reply.

I've kind of adopted this HP notebook -- either I use it or it becomes a door stop. That alone is a story too long for this space. It has Windows 8.1, which is a real pain on the notebook since it's too demanding an OS for this light weight. I mentioned the graphics issue only because I ran into the same problem of the highly skewed text after launching several Linux OSs. I think I got that when I tried Zorin 9. I fell onto Zorin 6 LITE because it was listed in the package I used to install Zorin on the USB -- Live Linux USB Creator. Z 6 was the first of the 6 Linux OSs that I tried that produced a screen that was normal looking and readable; figuring out what to change in the BIOS to be able to launch an alternative OS was a Herculean task in and of itself. I'm going the USB route as an experiment before putting an alternative OS on the hard drive; I'm hesitant to replace Windows 8.1, so I'm thinking of creating a partition for the alternative.

With regard to your #3, I ran across that instruction in my research, and it did sound like a PITA.

I think I'll try Zorin 9 LITE again. Is there a way to save the screen so I can show you what the graphics issue is?

S A Schneider

 

Your strategy is sound, but I wouldn't work that hard yet. There isn't much info available on that machine, although those specs are just begging for a lightweight linux distro, rather than the OEM Win8.

Looks like the graphics chip is an AMD 8180, and I would think that a newer distro with a newer kernel (such as Zorin 9) would be more likely to have an updated driver for AMD 8180. Let's address your graphics issue first and once that is resolved we can look to the wifi.

I would probably recommend a dual boot on that machine until you're confident that Zorin is an adequate replacement. The Realtek driver will probably always be an issue, but a nano wifi dongle is an easy & painless fix if you're willing to give up a usb port.

With respect to screenshots, Zorin has a screenshot program (i think it's called screenshot?) to snap a pic of the screen and you can post directly on here. Until we fix the wifi though, you'll have to connect via ethernet cable.

 

This thread seems to suggest that from kernel 3.14.1 and forward, the Realtek driver is enabled in the kernel, FYI (post #6):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2219896

 

Right, the graphics is AMD Radeon HD 8180. I'm thinking just like you suggest -- dual boot to get comfortable enough to abandon Windows 8.1. Fortunately I do not depend on this notebook for my work; this is just an appliance I use away from my ethernet connection (located in my office) for checking email and surfing the web. I'll write an update once I have a chance to try Zorin 9 Lite again.

 

Right on. With that said, don't forget to create Zorin 9 Lite LiveUSB with persistence. With persistence enabled, we should be able to boot the Zorin stick from USB into the Zorin desktop and see how the graphics appear.

Even if you have wifi from the LiveUSB, I always recommend an ethernet connection for updated drivers, etc... Once ALL updates have been installed on your persistent LiveUSB, we can check your wifi connection.

If you still have no wifi, we plug the ethernet back in and install some additional packages from repository (probably linux-firmware or perhaps linux-nonfree?) and try again. And we always have the option to install a nano usb dongle (are you okay with that, if all else fails?). Once we have your LiveUSB demonstrate to you that it is a viable OS for your hardware, we can proceed with a dual-boot installation, which will actually be the easiest step in the process.

If we can solve your graphics & wifi issue (to YOUR satisfaction), everything else will be quite simple, believe it or not?! :cool

 

Got it. Thx. I'm downloading Z 9 Lite now,, but won't be able to go any further until tomorrow.

 

Not a problem. Just be aware that I have a LOT going on right now and I likely won't be as responsive during the week, so please be patient. I won't leave you hanging, but I can't guarantee timely response like we've had today. Just FYI...

After all, I'm free, and you usually get what you pay for! :-D

 

I understand perfectly. Thx again for your speedy responsiveness.

 

Update -- Zorin OS 9 LITE launch successful this time, but with a few glitches to still work out. I think the difference is that I used unetbootin-windows-608 to create the USB boot instead of LinuxLive USB Creator 2.9.2. It told me I had wireless networks to connect to. I had to create a new network since it wouldn't take the password for my existing wifi network.

Glitches -- It came with Firefox installed, but when I opened it, I got an error message tht I already had Firefox open and that would have to close before it would permit it to be opened. It wouldn't allow me to install any of the other 3 browsers -- Chrome, Opera, and one I never hear of before that starts with an M. The shutdown button was not responsive so I had to reboot by cntrl-alt-delete to get out of it. When I tried to launch it again, my notebook told me I didn't have a boot disk. At that point I rebooted to Windows and decided to write this message to tell you about these successes -- proper launch of Z OS 9 Lite, and wifi connection.

With regard to the browser, maybe I have to uninstall and reinstall Firefox. Does Zorin permit only one browser?And what could be the problem with the shutdown button?

 

Okay, cool so far! I'm not sure it matters HOW you created a LiveUSB, so much as it has persistence...the ability to save changes & settings. What you describe above almost sounds as if you created a LiveUSB, but without the persistence...it sounds like you can "try" Zorin on your system, and "install" Zorin on your system, but not make changes. I'm not SURE of that, but that is what it sounds like. Hmmm... This might explain why you can't install an alternative browser, but it doesn't explain why you can't open Firefox because it thinks Firefox is already open even though it isn't (the browser with an M is probably Midori...a very lightweight, no frills browser). Do you know what the "terminal" program is? If you can open the terminal and type "top", it will provide a list of currently running programs on the Zorin system, along with their PIDS (process identification numbers). For instance, on my system, "top" shows the following programs, with Firefox being process "9138" (see attached screenshot).


If my system was responding like your Zorin, I would kill that process in order to restart/start Firefox again. In the terminal I would type:

Code:

kill 9138

Sometimes there are multiple instances of a program being run (sometimes computers just do weird things for unknown reasons!). If there are multiple instances of Firefox, kill each one separately (for instance "kill 9138"; then "kill xxxx"; and "kill yyyy"; until no more Firefox PIDs are running). After all instances are killed, you should be able to start Firefox again with a clean slate. I don't know why it's already running in a LiveUSB environment, as I have never experienced this before. I keep coming back to persistence, as that's the only thing I can think of that might explain this issue. How big is your USB stick and do you have persistence? IMO, a LiveUSB with persistence should probably be 8GB or larger, as 4GB or less may act as if you're running out of hard drive and do weird things. Just a thought... There's a user on here called Zlim who is quite adept at LiveUSBs and has linux experience. I'm hoping Zlim will see this thread and chime in with their thoughts.

The good news is that it sounds like the newer version with the newer kernel DOES have a Realtek driver in it, or at least a generic driver that recognizes the Realtek wifi chip! I'm not sure why you couldn't just select your network from a list of "visible" network connections. Perhaps the LiveUSB has a generic driver for your wifi that is "operational" but has glitches in the connection protocols, such as encryption, password, etc... We can try some things to test it, but we're back to persistence on the LiveUSB drive. I need to verify you created your USB with persistence before we move forward. Alternatively, perhaps Zlim will have other thoughts?

How are the graphics? Are your previous graphics issues resolved? Any other issues you have noticed, besides what you describe above?

If your graphics and wifi are acceptably improved, I think we need to address questions of persistence and USB disk size before we move forward. Without persistence, or a large enough disk, any changes we make to the LiveUSB will be lost.

 

I thought maybe since this HP has a 64-bit OS (x64-based processor) I would be better off with the 64-bit Zorin rather than Z 9 LITE which is 32-bit. So I downloaded the 64-bit version of Zorin 9 OS Core and loaded it onto my 8 Gig USB stick. Same issue with Firefox; by the way, with the Lite version I tried uninstalling/installing Firefox but it would not install fresh. I may have gotten passed that because I can now open Firefox but it can't find any server like www.zorin of google. Neither can I connect to my email account via Thunderbird.

How can I tell if I have persistence? Is there a bootloader that does that. I suspect I don't since it didn't retain the password for the wifi connection I created.

Interestingly I cannot boot Zorin from a cold bootup. I get a boot error and instruction to insert a boot disk. Taking out and putting back in the USB doesn't make a difference. i have to boot Zorin from within Windows by going through Windows 8.1 recovery options to get to BIOS by way of EFI.

Graphics are fine. My earlier experience with Z 9 was that i never got to or couldn't read the install options.

I'll look for terminal and try to kill any Firefoxes, but I think it's some other connectivity setting that needs to be changed. The firewall is on, outgoing is allowed and incoming denied. I tried tinkering with the Firewall but without success. Do any firewall settings need to be changed to permit connecting to any external server.

 

Zorin 9 is a heavily customised gnome-based desktop. Gnome is a heavier desktop in the linux world, but is still lighter than Windows. If your system can handle it, Zorin 9 Core would be fine. If it struggles, the Zorin 9 Lite desktop is a heavily customized LXDE desktop, which has one of the lightest resource requirements available. Even though it's 32 bit, I believe it has a PAE kernel to take advantage of RAM>4GB. Personally, I wouldn't worry about performance of 64vs32 bit. It's negligible. And any gain from 64bit is likely offset by the heavier gnome desktop. It's likely that the 32-bit Lite system with LXDE is just as fast as 64-bit Core with Gnome, maybe even faster. Don't make a decision based on esoteric specs...go with your personal preferences.

I suspect you haven't, or the wifi password would have been saved. Did you use an online guide or tutorial to create a LiveUSB? If you could connect to a website and download a small pic or something, & save in downloads or pic file, we could reboot LiveUSB and see if pic was saved. If it's still there, persistence is enabled; if it's not, persistence is NOT enabled.

Post a link of what you did, or describe the program and process. I don't work from within windows, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, but this looks like a good tutorial:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

These sound like UEFI issues related to Win8 hardware. Have you disabled secure boot and/or fastboot in the UEFI? You should definitely be able to cold boot from a LiveUSB. If you cannot, you need to look in UEFI to change settings to allow for that.

Okay, graphics issue resolved. One down! The rest does sound like a firewall issue. Does Zorin have a program called simply "UFW" (uncomplicated firewall)? If so, turn off UFW. It sounds like your connecting outgoing, but not receiving incoming. Turn off firewall and allow all traffic...for now at least.

 

I've switched the USB bootloader again to Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.9 because it allows you establish a Persistent space on the USB; I reserved 2 GB for it. Still have the same issues.Interesting. By the way, Thunderbird's failure notice says that there is a problem with the connection. So while I have a wifi connection I may be missing some of the parameters the card needs to function correctly.

At http://zoringroup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6688 there's a discussion by someone who could not connect with Chrome. Says the problem is corruption of "nm" - network manager which required installation of the ndiswrapper packages and their dependencies. Further, says that 2 packages -- ndiswrapper-dkms and ndiswrapper-source -- are not installed by default, and they are needed for his Netgear WNDA3100 wifi dogle to work.

Unless you have some other suggestion, when I have the time I'll take the notebook to my ethernet cord and try to download and install those packages and all the others needed to install them correctly.

 

If you believe you have persistence now, and if you have UEFI configured to allow USB booting (disabled secure boot and/or fastboot, if available) that is exactly my next suggested step. Plug in ethernet for connection, disable UFW (firewall) to allow ALL internet traffic, and download a small file from somewhere and save it (downloads, pictures, documents, where ever...) Exit the LiveUSB and then reboot the LiveUSB. Verify that the downloaded file has been saved where you expect it to be. This will confirm the persistence feature. If it isn't there, you still don't have persistence, obviously.

NDISWrapper is a cool program to allow the installation of windows .exe binary drivers. We will certainly be downloading that program once persistence has been confirmed. Before we do that, though, do you have any other external wifi dongles we can try as a test case? Or an Android cell phone that we can plug into a second USB port for Zorin to use as a cellular modem (watch your data plan though!) It's not critical, but might come in handy to know that the OS is configured correctly, thereby eliminating everything BUT the hardware/driver.

 

I have persistence -- downloaded pdf and it was in the documents folder under file manager, also installed Opera and it was still installed after rebooting. No change in the firewall was necessary; actually the default setting for Home is Off. i have spare 8 GB USB flash drives. No Android phone. ndiswrapper- source is not installed but ndiswrapper-dkms is installed.

 

PS I've also switched back to Z OS 9 Lite from the Core distros (32 and 64-bit) because they did not solve the wifi issue.

 

Not sure what you mean by the "default setting for Home is Off"?

Otherwise, everything else is looking good. Now we can make changes, if need be, with no worries about losing the changes made. Yay!

 

So did Zorin Lite 9 solve the wifi issue? Or do we still need to tinker with it? And is everything else looking good? Are we just down to wifi? Or are we good already?

 

Wifi does not work with either Core 32-bit, Core 64-bit, or Lite.
The firewall has different settings for Home, Public, etc. The default settings are Off so no change was needed to remove any firewall restrictions.
I added ndiswrapper-source and it didn't make any difference.
From browsing various forums it appears that the RTL 8188EE does not work out of the box with Zorin 9 for notebooks/laptops from a variety of manufacturers.

It appears that the driver need to be compiled. Can you tell me how to do that?

 

This is what you're looking for:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/3377...-on-toshiba-satellite-c55-a5281/337855#337855

Please note that this will need to be done everytime Zorin downloads a new and updated kernel (until it is included in the kernel). So save the downloaded driver and bookmark the instruction page (or copy/paste the instructions on that page) for future reference.

It's a PITA, but necessary until the Realtek driver gets into the main kernel. Or you could switch to the Bolse or Edimax wifi dongles that work automatically. But you should be good with the link above!

Good luck!

 

Thx. I'll give it a try when I get the opportunity.