Linux Newbie - Curiosity

I have an oldish Dell Latitude 7480 which doesn’t meet the requirements for upgrade to Windows 11 so I thought I’d take the opportunity to install Linux on it as I only really need it for day to day web stuff / studying / media and light gaming.

My first choice was Linux Mint but, for some reason it would not recognise that the laptop had a wifi card. So I tried Manjaro but felt Arch wasn’t for me so opted for Pop_OS and whilst everything I want works I thought I’d use the time to distro hop live environments to see what else was out there.

I know live envs doesn’t give you the full picture but to be honest I was more interested in the aesthetic appeal of the DE.

Where my curiosity lies is this, from my understanding Linux Mint is based on underlying Ubuntu as is Pop_OS, so how come both Pop_OS and Ubuntu recognise the wi-fi card out of the box so to speak but Mint doesn’t.

This is the wifi card in question:


<span style="color:#323232;">   description: Wireless interface
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   product: Wireless 8265 / 8275
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   vendor: Intel Corporation
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   physical id: 0
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   logical name: wlp2s0
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   version: 78
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   serial: cc:2f:71:ec:52:b1
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   width: 64 bits
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   clock: 33MHz
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=6.6.6-76060606-generic firmware=36.ca7b901d.0 8265-36.ucode ip=192.168.1.6 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
</span><span style="color:#323232;">   resources: irq:131 memory:ec000000-ec001fff
</span>

And with this in mind, does anyone have any idea how to get this wi-fi card working with Mint, I’m assuming I need a drive which the other drivers have but Mint, for whatever reason, doesn’t have.

Update:

I thought it would be easier to edit the post than reply to you all individually and thanks to everyone who took the time to respond so quickly.

I’ve just re-tried with the latest version 21.3 and it all works, maybe by newbie brain did something wrong with the first install.

I’ll probably stick with Pop_OS as it does what I need and I quite like the Gnome interface.

But again, thank you all for your input it’s awesome to know that swift help is available for idiots newbies like me.

wwwgem,
@wwwgem@lemmy.ml avatar

Drivers is a vocabulary you should almost forgot in Linux ;) Contrary to other OS, Linux will rarely require you to install a driver.

To answer your question, doing a simple online “mint wireless 8275” returned a forum with your exact issue. The reported solution is to “try powering it off, remove the power cord and hold the power button for 30 seconds. Reconnect cord and power up”. As weird as it sounds this may work. It worked for me 10 years ago with a keyboard. It’s easy and quick to try it. Let us know if that helps or not. Too bad you didn’t like Arch because your laptop was fully supported.

MentalEdge, (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

OP is talking about a laptop.

Unless you are suggesting they find a way to remove the battery, “removing the power cord and turning it on without actually turning it on” isn’t something they can try.

And the fact that WiFi works on another distro suggests this isn’t a weird bug-state that the card needs to be snapped out of with power-cycling tricks.

wwwgem,
@wwwgem@lemmy.ml avatar

OP has solved his issue already but the trick I mentioned could be due to a capacitor issue which can occur anytime and break things that worked before.
I was just trying to help by suggesting an approach that solved the exact same issue on others’ laptop running the same distro. Even though not convenient you can either wait for your battery to run out or disconnect it to try this trick.

SzethFriendOfNimi,
@SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world avatar

That trick screams “residual power in a capacitor that we need to drain to get a proper restart on some component”

I’ve heard of that working with some motherboards where it seemed they were dead and may explain those boards that don’t work but magically do months later when the capacitors had time to completely discard the small trickle of current they still had.

wwwgem,
@wwwgem@lemmy.ml avatar

Exactly.

psvrh,
@psvrh@lemmy.ca avatar

Did you use the Debian edition of Mint? Debian doesn’t include a lot of proprietary drivers and/or firmware blobs with its standard edition.

I can’t say that’s the case here, but it’s possible that Mint is either using Debian as a base, or at least following the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

There’s usually a nonfree firmware deb you can use, post installation. If you can complete the install and connect to the internet via the 7480’s Ethernet port, you should be able to get the wifi card working.

bizdelnick,

You don’t need to distro hop to try different DEs.

There’s no enough information to understand what Wi-Fi adapter you have and what driver is used. Show us lspci -knn

MentalEdge, (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Hardware related stuff like this typically comes down to the kernel version, or what kernel modules the distro ships. The linux kernel comes with a ton a drivers for different hardware, each of which implement support for hundreds/thousands of pieces of hardware. The wi-fi driver shipped with Mint isn’t new enough to include an implementation for your specific wi-fi hardware.

Mint seems to be on an LTS 5.X kernel, while Pop is shipping newer 6.X kernels (makes sense, as they like to keep up with gaming-related improvements).

As an example, I had to jump to a newer version on Manjaro, when the LTS kernel used by default was just one digit behind the version that was new enough to have support for the PS DualSense5 controller.

Hopping to a newer kernel version can be tricky depending on the distro, but it looks like Mint has a tool for this. You can find it in the Update Manager: View --> Linux Kernels. There you should be able to switch to running a 6.X kernel version.

wwwgem,
@wwwgem@lemmy.ml avatar

Thanks for the update. Have fun!

OmanMkII, (edited )

(Intel)[www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/…/wireless.html) has a list of compatible cards and their drivers which may help, follow the instructions and reboot to run usually.

If it’s an adaptor there’s odds it’s not designed for it, I had issues with a USB mounted adaptor myself.

mateomaui, (edited )

Contrary to what some have said here, it’s not unusual to have to download and manually install the wifi driver for Mint. It’s even mentioned as the one extra step in a cartoon comparing the time it takes to install three different distros. I had to do this for two different laptops.

OmanMkII already provided the link for intel, but here it is again:

www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/…/wireless.html

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