Cant install wifi driver for Realtek wireless adapter

I should preface I'm almost completely new to Linux, especially installment-wise so please bear with me. I got a new HP computer and installed Linux Ubuntu 20.04 from a bootable USB that I created from the instructions on the Ubuntu website. I went on to install it with another offical tutorial. Before that the laptop only had FreeDOS installed.

Ubuntu installation didnt show up on the Boot menu, I needed to hold F10 to get into BIOS and now whenever I start it, it needs to be booted up from GNU grab menu. However, the wifi doesnt work, because the driver isnt installed.

Using lspci the network controller is shown to be Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter. I searched up this tutorial to help me install the driver. I downloaded it on another computer, used an USB to transfer it to the new computer, unzipped it, and executed the first few commands as shown.

When I tried to use the make command however, I got an error stating that the command isnt found but can be installed with sudo apt install make. Trying to run this command gives another error, stating Package make is not available, but it is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source E: Package 'make' has no installation candidate.

I dug up old posts, and some old users suggested using the sudo apt-get install build-essential and similar commands to reinstall make. That also gave an error that package build-essential couldnt be found (I also tried using TAB instead of enter which was supposed to work on Ubuntu 20.04).

Some suggested using sudo apt-get update before build-essential, but that also thew several errors. Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'it.archive.ubuntu.com' and 3 quite similar looking ones. It appears I've run into a circular problem, I need to install the Wi-fi driver, but I need internet connection to do that.

Im running out of ideas, so any and all help is much appreaciated.

Solution 1:

With a temporary internet connection by tethering, open a terminal and do:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install rtl8821ce-dkms

Reboot. Your wireless should now be working. You may need to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS/EFI.