this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2021
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Hi, everyone!

I am interested in Linux, but wasn't able to use it on my system, because of the lack of wifi drivers. Now here's my question: Are there any Linux distros, that support wifi out of the box?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (3 children)

My system setup:

CPU: Core i5-10400U GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 1 TB It is a desktop btw.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

The wifi is on the mainboard or a seperate addon card? In general "Killer" gaming network equippment seems to have issues under Linux. Most other wifi cards, especially those with intel and realtek chipsets usually work out of the box.

What Linux distribution did you try?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (3 children)

I tried a few... Ubuntu, LM, Solus, everywhere was the same error. Is there a way to find out the driver in the live Linux USB?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago

Can't you just check in your current OS (assuming it is Windows) what the network card is? Worse comes to worst you can get a cheap USB wifi card or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago

Do you have Ethernet access?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Simplified speaking there is no such thing as a driver in the Linux world. It either works or it doesn't. Try to figure out what the wifi hardware in your PC is, otherwise we can't really help you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Yo. Who sells you your crack? I want some. Of course there's drivers in Linux.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Simplified speaking ofc. rolls eyes

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

How is that simplified at all? Sometimes you need to download drivers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago (1 children)

in 90% (other than Nvidia GPU) not, and certainly not in the way Windows users are used to it. For beginners it is better to only use the hardware that is supported by the kernel itself.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Perhaps he falls into that other 10%? That's still 1 in 10. Though that's obviously not accurate.

No they're not the same as Windows, and some people don't have the financial option of buying a system specifically for Linux - they have what they have and need to make it work.

I needed to download wifi drivers for my first Linux install. Sometimes it happens. No need to mislead the poor guy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Hence I asked him to figure out what his hardware is. Talking about drivers on Linux is what misleds most beginner users on Linux, as it is totally different from the Windows world.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago

We're just arguing on a miscommunication, there's no real difference in our intended outcome. Hope you have a good day man.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago

Please, open terminal in live OS, do "lspci" and send the output. It is faster doing that to identify your wireless card. That setup information you gave has nothing to do with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Unfortunately without knowing what your wifi card is, we can't really help there. An easy way to know if it works is to try a live-USB of any distro you like. If it works, you know that once installed it should work too. Otherwise you would have to dig a little probably.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

The driver is an Realtek RTL8821 CE

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Apparently the driver for this card was about to be included in the kernel last year, but I don't know if it is now. You might have more luck with rolling-release distros, or at least very up to date ones like Fedora.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

Indeed that chipset seems to be problematic. There is a complicated way to get it working, but you are probably better off waiting a bit for the Linux kernel level support to stabilize. Apparently it is included in version 5.9 but buggy. Maybe it works in 5.10 now.

If you want to try now, you best bet is to install Manjaro, connect it to a cable ethernet to update the Kernel to 5.10 and reboot to check if the wifi works then.