Worked perfectly for me (Pi2, Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188ETV Wireless LAN 802.11n Network Adapter)
the wlan0 interface does not sense the carrier and dhcpcd refuses to configure it. It seems that dhcpcd does not acknowledge that it is a WiFi adapter, so we have to force it. Just add an interface section into /etc/dhcpcd.conf:
I cloned the v5.2.2.4 branch, ran make all, then sudo make install, the copied the rtl8188eufw.bin file to /lib/firmware/rtlwifi, then sudo reboot.
iw config wlan0 showed the wifi device, but it would not connect to the network.
To fix this try here: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/112062/raspbian-buster-lite-couldnt-communicate-with-wpa-supplicant
Worked perfectly for me (Pi2, Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188ETV Wireless LAN 802.11n Network Adapter)