WiFi not working on laptop Acer Aspire E15 (E5-576G-55Y4)

Question

I just installed Ubuntu 14.04.5 (Desktop LTS, x86) on my Acer Aspire E15 E5-576G-55Y4 laptop and wifi is not working or appear in Network Manager, but Ethernet works fine. How to fix this problem?

ifconfig:

  eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr d8:c4:97:0f:5b:95  
      inet addr:192.168.1.221  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
      inet6 addr: fe80::dac4:97ff:fe0f:5b95/64 Scope:Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:26366 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:2802 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
      RX bytes:3380631 (3.3 MB)  TX bytes:454525 (454.5 KB)

  lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
      RX packets:527 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:527 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1
      RX bytes:78183 (78.1 KB)  TX bytes:78183 (78.1 KB)

lshw -C network:

  *-network UNCLAIMED    
   description: Network controller
   product: Intel Corporation
   vendor: Intel Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
   version: 10
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
   configuration: latency=0
   resources: memory:b4100000-b4101fff
  *-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0.1
   bus info: pci@0000:04:00.1
   logical name: eth0
   version: 12
   serial: d8:c4:97:0f:5b:95
   size: 1Gbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8411-2_0.0.1 07/08/13 ip=192.168.1.221 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
   resources: irq:127 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:b4004000-b4004fff memory:b4000000-b4003fff

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 5914 (rev 08)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 5917 (rev 07)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d2f (rev 21)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d31 (rev 21)
00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d60 (rev 21)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d3a (rev 21)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d03 (rev 21)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d10 (rev f1)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d18 (rev f1)
00:1d.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d1a (rev f1)
00:1d.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d1b (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d4e (rev 21)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d21 (rev 21)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9d71 (rev 21)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 9d23 (rev 21)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1d10 (rev a1)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 24fb (rev 10)
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5287 (rev 01)
04:00.1 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)

I can't upgrade distr to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or 16.04 due to compatibility of the OS with various programs

Answer 1

You will need backports to use that wifi card in Ubuntu 14.04

sudo apt-get install build-essential
wget https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/v4.14-rc2/backports-4.14-rc2-1.tar.gz
tar -zxvf backports-4.14-rc2-1.tar.gz
cd backports-4.14-rc2-1
make defconfig-wifi
make
sudo make install
cd /lib/firmware
sudo wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/iwlwifi-3168-22.ucode

Reboot After kernel updates you will need to

cd backports-4.14-rc2-1
make clean
make defconfig-wifi
make
sudo make install

Reboot

Answer 2

Anzipex try retarting your network manager. Follow this link for more get help How to restart WiFi connection?

Answer 3

If backports has make error, that you need to check kernel release version:

uname -r

And if it's earlier than 4.14.0-041400rc2-generic, you need to download and install this packages: https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.14-rc2/

And then do the same that Jeremy31 wrote