Have you ever installed Linux on a laptop, restarted it, and not seen it on your Wi-Fi card? It is quite deflating. Try these tips. One or more of them may simply work.
Linux and Wi-Fi: It’s a Love Hate Something
Historically, Linux has had some tense connections with Wi-Fi cards. The situation has changed significantly in recent years, and for the better – but it’s still possible to get into your new Linux setup and feel overwhelmed when you realize you don’t have Wi-Fi.
The installation procedures are very good at identifying the various components of the target computer and configuring itself to work with this device. But problems can still occur.
Hardware problems are difficult to solve, especially if the only computer you have is a broken device. Obviously, not everything presented here will apply to all cases. But we hope that something below will either solve your problem or guide you in the right direction.
Before installation
Do a little research. Most distributions have a list of supported equipment. In their forums, ask if anyone else is using the same brand and model of laptop you intend to use. Did they have any problems and if so, how did they solve them?
To get a better idea of what you’re going to encounter, download your laptop from the latest edition of the intended distribution Live USB or Live CD. Then you can be sure that it works as you expected without making a leap of confidence in the installation.
Check things like screen resolution and graphics, mouse panel and gestures, and your Wi-Fi connection. If they work in a live environment, they should work when you install the distribution. If none of these work, try a Live CD without a different distribution. You can get different results. If so, can you explain why? Maybe they use a newer kernel or combine the drivers with their installations.
Using the commands we show you in this article, you can identify the Wi-Fi device inside your laptop. With this knowledge you can do some internet searches. If you’re lucky, your Wi-Fi card will simply be the one that works. Otherwise, you will probably need to use some of the methods described in this article.
See the key combination needed to interrupt the boot sequence and enter the laptop’s BIOS. You may not need it, but if you do, you will be glad you knew it in advance. Often one of the following: Esc, F2, F5 or F10. On most laptops, you have to press and hold the Fn key at the same time. Make sure you know what the keys are to enter the BIOS on your laptop.
Plan what to do if Wi-Fi doesn’t turn on right away. Can you use a wired connection to connect your laptop to the internet? If not, do you have access to another computer? Can you connect to your mobile phone and use it to access the Internet?
Look for simple goths
It’s easy to jump to the deep end and start exploring complex root causes, but don’t overlook the simple things.
Some laptops have physical external switches (usually sliders) that turn off Wi-Fi. They are often well camouflaged and designed to blend into the body of the laptop. Accidentally switching one of these to “off” mode will prevent Wi-Fi from working on the operating system, no matter what you do.
It is also possible to disable Wi-Fi from the BIOS. Restart the laptop and enter the BIOS. Find the Network or Wi-Fi section and make sure Wi-Fi is active.
Let’s continue the download sequence. Log in and open the system menu by clicking on the right end of the GNOME status bar (or wherever your network settings are located in your desktop environment). If there is a menu entry called “Wi-Fi Off”, click on it.
Select “Open” from the expanded menu options.
The menu will close. Open it again and select “Settings”.
In the Settings application, select Wi-Fi from the side panel and make sure that the slider on the top panel is “on” and the airplane mode slider is “off.” Then select the Wi-Fi network to connect to.
If you do not see any of these options, your network card is not recognized by the operating system.
Work on problems
Now that we’re sure we haven’t missed any major fixes, let’s move on to the intricacies of resolving Wi-Fi card issues.
Does any network type work?
If you have an ethernet connection on your laptop and can connect using a wired connection, the network works on your laptop. Wi-Fi just doesn’t work. If you don’t have an Ethernet port, you can still have hope with an Ethernet adapter.
If you can’t connect via your wired connection, then there is something wrong with your computer’s network capabilities. Try to get your laptop to ping itself.
ping localhost
ping 127.0.0.1
If none of these work, your network manager may be missing or broken. Try reinstalling it. This will either install it or replace it if it is already installed.
Ubuntu type:
sudo apt install network-manager
In the use of Fedora:
sudo dnf install network-manager
The order in Manjaro is as follows:
sudo pacman -Sy network-manager
Restart and see if this improves the situation.
Wi-Fi Card Hardware Identification
If you still do not use Wi-Fi, we need to identify the Wi-Fi card equipment. The lspci The command will list all your PCI devices.
lspci
Look for an entry that has “wireless” or “wi-fi” in the description.
On this laptop, this is the Realtek RTL8723BE. We can also see using this information nmcli network interface identifier, including commands.
nmcli
Our wireless interface wlan0 is shown as inaccessible, but it still identifies the equipment for us.
This entry is displayed as “software disabled” because we turned off the Wi-Fi card to mimic the error. In a real life scenario, the message here can give you a clue as to what the problem is or what it may be related to.
We Are Trying To Bring The Card Online
The iw the team can sometimes be helpful. Substitute wlan0 for a compatible interface on your computer.
iw dev wlan0 link
We were told that the interface is not closed. Let’s try to bring it up.
sudo ip link set wlan0 up
We were told that for this reason the network connection could not be opened rfkill . This is a utility to forcibly prevent radio frequency network interfaces from working. We can show him what is holding him back.
rfkill list
We can tell him to unblock everything that is blocked. Note that if the card is locked, it means that the laptop has a physical key that must be set to the “on” position. Subtracting the program block.
rfkill unblock wifi
rfkill list
In our case, it solved the problem. If you still have a problem, this could be a driver module problem.
Checking drivers
we can check the drivers used lspci by order -k (kernel drivers) option.
lspci -k
Our wireless card uses rtl8723be driver and kernel module.
We can check that it is loaded by searching the system logs dmesg and grep . Replace “rtl8723be” with the name of the module for your computer.
sudo dmesg | grep rtl8723be
If you don’t see a positive sign that the driver is loading, check the website and online help for distribution and look for instructions on how to download drivers without distribution. Distributors have common driver packages that you can use often, and they may have distribution-specific programs to make it easier to download new drivers.
If you can’t find a way to get your drivers from your distribution’s package manager or website, review the list of supported wireless cards and find your card equipment in the list.
Clicking on the model (or closest compatibility) of the Wi-Fi card will take you to the page for the card. This page will list all the cards in the family of those hardware releases. See if your card is listed.
In our case, we clicked on the “rtl8723ae” link, which gave us a page with rtl8723be.
At the bottom of the page there is a link under the heading “firmware”.
This takes you to the go to the firmware page for the firmware. use git clone command and select one of the places at the bottom of the page to download the repository. We used:
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
In the downloaded (large) directory tree, you should find the appropriate driver file for your device.
See the distribution instructions on how to best download this.
Use your community
Communities related to Linux distributions are one of the strengths of Linux. Ask for help in the distribution community of your choice. It is very likely that someone else has experienced the same thing you are struggling with.