Lenovo 18.04 No Wi-Fi Adapter Found

I know this question has been asked here before, but the answers haven't helped me. I have a Lenovo Ideapad on which I've installed via UNetbootin 18.04. Everything else with the install went smoothly, but like others my wifi is not working. In particular, I've gotten the no wi-fi adapter found message.

Many of the fixes relied on gaining access to the internet via an ethernet connection, but my machine doesn't have a connection for that.

I haven't used Ubuntu in several years so my Linux foo is very rusty. I'm essentially a newbie.

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]:  Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:c821]
          Subsystem: Lenovo RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [17aa:co24]

Let me emphasize newbie again. I don't know how else to post this. Here's the feedback now that I attempt to run make after updating and upgrading again:

/bin/sh: 1: cc: not found
(standard_in) 1: syntax error
make ARCH=x86_64 CROSS_COMPILE= -C /lib/modules/4.18.0-15-generic/build M=/home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce  modules
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.18.0-15-generic'
arch/x86/Makefile:155: CONFIG_X86_X32 enabled but no binutils support
./scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 26: gcc: command not found
./scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 27: gcc: command not found
Makefile:970: "Cannot use CONFIG_STACK_VALIDATION=y, please install libelf-dev, libelf-devel or elfutils-libelf-devel"
make[1]: gcc: Command not found
make[1]: gcc: Command not found
make[1]: gcc: Command not found
make[1]: gcc: Command not found
/bin/sh: 1: gcc: not found
(standard_in) 1: syntax error
/home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce/Makefile:2157: home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce/hal/phydm/phydm.mk: No such file or directory
/home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce/Makefile:2166: home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce/rtl8821c.mk: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** No rule to make target 'home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce/rtl8821c.mk'.  Stop.
Makefile:1534: recipe for target '_module_/home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce' failed
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/john/Downloads/rtl8821ce] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.18.0-15-generic'
Makefile:2237: recipe for target 'modules' failed
make: *** [modules] Error 2
john@john-Lenovo-ideapad-130S-11IGM:~/Downloads/rtl8821ce$ sudo make install
/bin/sh: 1: cc: not found
(standard_in) 1: syntax error
install -p -m 644 8821ce.ko  /lib/modules/4.18.0-15-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
install: cannot stat '8821ce.ko': No such file or directory
Makefile:2243: recipe for target 'install' failed
make: *** [install] Error 1

Ran the commands and got these errors:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), is another process using it?
john@john-Lenovo-ideapad-130S-11IGM:~$ sudo apt-get install libelf-dev
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), is another process using it?

Solution 1:

Please open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential git dkms
git clone https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce
cd rtl8821ce
chmod +x dkms-install.sh
chmod +x dkms-remove.sh
sudo ./dkms-install.sh   
sudo modprobe 8821ce

Your wireless should now be working.

Revision 31 July, 2019 9:40 am EDT