Comment # 3 on bug 950874 from David Walker

1.  It looks to me like the firmware is getting loaded:

  > dmesg | grep rtl
  [   16.060198] Bluetooth: hci0: rtl: examining hci_ver=06 hci_rev=000b
lmp_ver=06 lmp_subver=8723
  [   16.060212] Bluetooth: hci0: rtl: loading rtl_bt/rtl8723b_fw.bin
  [   16.102195] rtl8723be 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
  [   16.116750] rtl8723be: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723befw.bin
  [   16.332869] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'rtl_rc'
  [   16.333456] rtlwifi: rtlwifi: wireless switch is on
  [   16.336127] rtl8723be 0000:03:00.0 wlo1: renamed from wlan0

2.  From about 3 feet from the access point, iwlist scan shows the access point
but connecting is problematic.  iwlist shows nothing is shown at ~40 feet. 
Everything is fine under Windows (as much as I hate to admit it), so I don't
think there's a hardware problem.