rtl8723bu

Driver for Realtek RTL8723BU Wireless Adapter with Hardware ID 0bda:b720

How to use?

Get the source first.

Get it from Github repository with the following command in the Linux terminal.

git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723bu.git
cd rtl8723bu

Or get it as zip archive. Note: If you use the zip format, you will need to download the entire source EVERY time it is changed. By contrast, a 'git pull' will get only the changed part. In addition, the git version will be able to access all branches, whereas the zip version only handles one branch.

wget https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723bu/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip && rm master.zip
cd rtl8723bu-master
...
Note: The code in branch v4.3.16 is better than that in master. Get that with
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723bu.git -b v4.3.16

Concurrent or Non-Concurrent Mode

By default driver operates the hardware as a station AND as an access point simultaneously. This will show two devices when you run the iwconfig command.

If you do not want two devices (station and an access point) simultaneously, then follow these instructions.

• Step 1: Run the following command in the Linux terminal.

nano Makefile

• Step 2: Find the line that contains EXTRA_CFLAGS += -DCONFIG_CONCURRENT_MODE and insert a # symbol at the beginning of that line. This comments that line and disables concurrent mode.

Manual install

Run the following commands in the Linux terminal.

make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v 8723bu

This driver can not work with the standard driver rtl8xxxu, thus you need to blacklist it. Run the following command ... sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/50-rtl8xxxu.conf ... Add a single line: blacklist rtl8xxxu ...

Automatic install using DKMS

If you don't want to worry about building/installing driver after kernel update, use this scenario. For Ubuntu/Debian install DKMS package using command sudo apt install dkms.

Then run following commands in terminal

source dkms.conf
sudo mkdir /usr/src/$PACKAGE_NAME-$PACKAGE_VERSION
sudo cp -r core hal include os_dep platform dkms.conf Makefile rtl8723b_fw.bin /usr/src/$PACKAGE_NAME-$PACKAGE_VERSION
sudo dkms add $PACKAGE_NAME/$PACKAGE_VERSION
sudo dkms autoinstall $PACKAGE_NAME/$PACKAGE_VERSION