Image Source: wikipedia.org
A lot of people will remember my guide how to get a RTL8111/RTL8168 running under your Linux box. This guide is almost 5 years old now and I wanted to make a complete overhaul, because a lot of things has changed since then.
Free drivers for RealTek RTL8111C. Found 135 files for Windows 10, Windows 10 64-bit, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 8, Windows 8 64-bit, Windows 7, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit, Windows Server 2008 R2. The package provides the installation files for Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC Driver version 5.708.1030.2008. In order to manually update your driver, follow the steps below (the next steps). How to Install macOS Catalina (Beta) on PC with Full Guide & Step By Step. Save 40% on PDFelement 7: PDFelement 7 - PDF Editor: https.
Some people asked me, „Why do I need this driver anyway? Doesn’t the Linux Kernel ship it?“. This is of course a valid question. As far as I can see this, the RTL8111/RTL8168 is not Open Source and this would be of course the reason why the driver isn’t included into the Linux Kernel. As long as the driver isn’t Open Sourced, we have to build it on our own.
A lot of things have changed since I written the initial article about how to compile the driver under Ubuntu / Debian. Today we can use 2 methods for installing the driver. The following lines describes both of them.
NOTE: Thanks to the user „Liyu“ who gave me this hint!
NOTE2: For this way you need a working internet connection. You could use WLAN or a USB ethernet card like this one to get a temporary internet connection. You could also download every needed single package onto USB from another PC and install them in the right order.
As I said ealier, 5 years is a long time. And today Ubuntu and Debian have the driver included in it’s repository. For Debian you have to enable the non-free package sources. For Ubuntu you have to enable the universe package sources. You can easily do this by open your /etc/apt/sources.list as root with your editor of choice and add for each line starting with „deb“ non-free or universe at the end. So for example, if you use Debian a line like:
would become to
The same for Ubuntu:
would become to
After this you have to do a:
You can of course use graphical ways to enable non-free or universe. After you enabled the missing package repository, you will be ready to install the driver. This can be easily done with the following command:
The procedure will take some time, depending on your CPU because the driver will be build for your working Kernel. The good side is, that if any Kernel update happens on your machine, the kernel will be rebuild against the new Kernel automatically after the update because of the use of dkms.
After the procedure is finished, you should be able to use your network card instantly. If not, you should consider a reboot of your PC then.
Well, the manual way is almost the same as it was before in the initial article. Anyway, I want to rewrite the steps here again. This is also tested against newer Kernels ( >= 4.0) which caused a lot of trouble for some people in the past.
NOTE: Your tar filename can of course differs if you download a newer version in the future for e.g.
NOTE: Don’t forget to change your version number in the future here.
Now that you are in the right directory, we can start with the real compiling process. For this Realtek brings an easy to use script which is called autorun.sh. So, to start compiling and installing the driver enter:
You should see a output which looks like this:
You can ignore the SSL error for now. The driver should be successfully compiled and installed into your system. The driver is already loaded and should work.
You can also check as well your ethernet device directly to see if the correct driver is loaded (special thanks goes to Tim which posted this in the comment section):
NOTE: You have to the change enp1s0 to the device name of your network card of course. This can be eth0, eth1, enp2s0, and so on.
If your driver isn’t loaded until now, you should go with a reboot before further investigation.
And that’s it. Now you’re ready to use your RTL8168/RTL8111 with the official Realtek drivers. If you have any questions and / or suggestions, please let me know in the comments.