linuxmemes

Try BSD

The very evening I installed Linux for the first time (I think it was Ubuntu 12.04), my Wifi stick was the first major hurdle. I was a teenager, had no idea about package managers and such, but the drivers for my stick were only available in an uncompiled format, so I had to first learn what build utils and kernel dev packages were, download them and their dependencies onto the windows PC of my dad and copy them onto a CD.

After I had figured all that out (took me.a while), I learned how to compile on the fly.

After I had run ./configure and it finallyfinally ran through without error, the config script had this last line:

Configure done successfully. Now type 'make' and pray

Things have changed over the years, but they haven't changed enough.

akmod and dkms to the rescue so you can watch as your kernel fights with the hardware in real time

I've only had problems with wifi drivers twice, immediately after clean-installing fedora 38 on two different devices. Plugging my device into ethernet and updating fixed it instantly.

Just wait for the nvidia drivers lol

Old meme

Remember ndiswrapper?

It’s been so much better…but I’m steeling myself to track down a WiFi direct bug that keeps disconnecting due to a timeout after 10 seconds. Linus give me strength!

It's insane how I just had this problem today. Had to tear out my network card in my Asus VivoBook 16. The drivers aren't out for the MediaTek network card so I had to change it to an Intel one that I previously used.

Still using a super old wlan usb adapter and I'm like, it just works!

This seems like a good thread to ask:

I have a Retropie and I use wpa_supplicant to manage my connection there. It looks like this: the router is downstairs and I use a repeater in the room next to the Retropie to have better wifi coverage upstairs. The router itself is reachable, but the signal strength is worse. So, as a fallback, I put both the router and the repeater connection in my wpa_supplicant config file with the router having a lower priority. Still, sometimes my retropie clings onto the worse connection for some reason and there is no way to change it but to do a complete reboot. If I just restart the wifi with ifdown and ifup, it will either not reconnect to any wifi at all or reconnect to the shittier connection again, it's kinda a fifty-fifty. A reboot will always properly choose the best signal tho and I am very confused why this is happening. Any ideas?

I only had issues with this when setting up Kali Linux for learning pen testing. Fedora it worked out of the box.

LPT: Swapping Wifi modules is (sometimes at least) stupidly easy to do. I had a shitty

Trigger Warning

Realtek wifi card

and bought an Intel card to replace it for about 30 bucks. Begone random disconnects and packet drops. Note that this was on a laptop and it was still just an issue of removing a few screws and swapping modules.

If you want some irony, on a recent Ubuntu install I was able to access WiFi out of the box but the small windoze dual boot partition refused to connect to a WiFi 6 router. Tried upgrading driver, downgrading drivers, nothing... The computer came shipped with windows 10.