Why aren't proprietary drivers in use?

DUT: HP Laptop 14z-fq000 20.04, single boot, MOK secure boot is enabled, an Internet connection was available during the installation (Ethernet to USB C)

I simply booted 20.04 from a thumb drive and then selected erase and install and followed the instructions and lastly updated to the latest 20.04.

Display and WiFi and Bluetooth and everything I've tried so far work perfectly.

I'm a bit worried however because under "Additional Drivers" it says (Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.) "This device not working" and also "No proprietary drivers are in use".

Why aren't proprietary drivers in use?

Is there any corrective action I should take?

Many thanks, Gary

gary@garysHP:~$ sudo lshw -C network [sudo] password for gary:

*-network
description: Wireless interface product: RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network

Adapter vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 logical name: wlo1 version: 00 serial: 00:e9:3a:54:e2:09 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet

physical wireless

   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtw_8821ce 

driverversion=5.11.0-37-generic

firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.230 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 resources: irq:42 ioport:f000(size=256) memory:fcf00000-fcf0ffff gary@garysHP:~$

Solution 1:

The reason that no prprietary drivers are in use is that your wireless device doesn't require proprietary drivers. All Realtek devices that I am currently aware of use free and open-source drivers. Notably, the entire code may be read freely on various github sites.

The only devices that I am aware of that require proprietary drivers are Broadcom. You have no Broadcom device.

No corrective action is required.

The statement that "This device not working" is simply incorrect. The Additional Drivers utility often shows the same incorrect warning.