I am currently trying to escape Windows and want to switch to Linux Mint as my daily driver.
However when I first tried it on a spare laptop everything worked except the WiFi. A kernel update fixed it because it also has ethernet.
My question is can I boot to a live USB on the ethernet laptop, update the kernel on the live USB and use that on the other laptop to install mint with working WiFi?
I tried to use the internet from my phone via Bluetooth but it was so slow it was unusable.
If this is a dumb question I apologise as I’ve been using Linux for less than a day at this point.
I’m no pro, so I don’t know if your solution would work.
But I’ve had a cheap USB Ethernet dongle lying around and I’ve had to use that whenever WiFi hasn’t worked on my laptop (without an Ethernet port) with fresh distro installs.
This is good advice.
Not that I don’t believe you, but how are you sure that a kernel update is what fixed the Wi-Fi issue? Can you tell me how you came to that conclusion?
Also, have you tested the boot drive on the other laptop? It’s very likely that it has a different Wi-Fi device and therefore uses a different driver in the kernel. Let me know and I’ll help you as much as I can 🙂
Well the USB WiFi works fine.
However now my issue is I can’t install Mint onto the laptop. It keeps saying it can’t install GRUB onto the SSD.
I think it’s because even though I’ve deleted the windows partitions using the Mint installer the ASU’s BIOS still has Windows Bootloader as an option.
Hopefully taking the SSD out of the laptop and fully erasing it will let me install Mint.
EDIT.
I solved the issue. The Asus laptop uses a MediaTek wifi and bluetooth chip that isn’t supported by Linux. I’ve ordered a TP-Link mini USB adapter so hopefully that works.
When I installed Mint on the laptop with the ethernet port there was no WiFi adapters found. So I updated the kernel, restarted and WiFi was working.
I used the same live USB on both laptops.
Unfortunately my other laptop has no ethernet port so I must wait for a USB dongle to be delivered.
This is a slightly more complex/involved answer, but you could try updating the kernel manually.
I couldn’t find a good video or forum tutorial, but you can download the kernel as a tarball from here and put it on a USB (or even use your phone as a USB). From there, I’m not entirely sure what you’d need to do, but it may be as simple as opening Update Manager and selecting the kernel from the external drive (I unfortunately don’t have access to my Mint laptop to test for you right now).
No, you can’t.
Why not use the same method that worked last time? Do you not have a wired connection anymore?
Anyway, if a kernel update fixed it last time, it’s highly likely the latest ISO will have that updated kernel already. Just try seeing if Wifi works from the live USB.
One of my laptops doesn’t have ethernet. Also the bluetooth doesn’t work either with the same live USB. I’ve ordered a USB wifi dongle and i’ll try that.
