11mo ago

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:

 undefined

           description: Wireless interface
       product: Wireless 8265 / 8275
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlp2s0
       version: 78
       serial: cc:2f:71:ec:52:b1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       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
       resources: irq:131 memory:ec000000-ec001fff

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.

30 comments

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.
- 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.
  
  Exactly.
- Op tried manjaro, not arch. Endeavouros is arch. Manjaro is superfluOS.
  
  Oh ok. I was just joking. What matters is that you find what works for you. One of the beauty of Linux is that there's a distro for everyone.
- 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.
  
  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.

For a new user who just wants a good OS to start with, PopOS is a fine choice. A little surprised you had trouble with Mint identifying your WiFi card but, I see others have posted on it. Mint is typically my go-to recommendation for new Linux users.

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.
- In Debian 12 they started including the non-free firmware in the standard installer. LMDE 6 is based on Debian 12, but I think even in LMDE 5 they were included for a better out of box experience.
  
  Ah, didn't know that. I haven't done a new install--just upgrades--on a laptop since either Squeeze or Jessie.
  
  Not necessarily, I installed LMDE 6 and still needed to manually install the wifi drivers.
- I believe LMDE includes the proprietary stuff you might need and, as others have said, Debian 12 is starting to as well.

Intel and the iwlwifi driver are very well supported and should work out of the box. You might try the Edge ISO, I don't know what kernel is in the regular 21.3 ISO but Edge is supposed to be newer in general. Upgrading to 21.3 is simple once installed.
https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/edge.html
There is also an odd solution at https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=399427 (applies to a normal PC, but if you're able to remove your laptop battery or turn off the battery in the bios for a tik).
- Just to add because I don't think it's super well known, Linux Mint makes it very easy to switch between kernel versions in their graphical updater. In the View menu there is a Linux Kernels option where you can switch. Currently you can use the default 5.15 LTS kernel but there are options for 5.19, 6.2, and 6.5. They follow Ubuntu upstream for support, so only 5.15, 6.2, and 6.5 are actively supported (with 6.2 near end of life).
  The Debian edition does not have a pretty way to switch to the backports kernel (currently 6.5) unfortunately.

Thanks for the update. Have fun!

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.
Different releases of Linux distributions come with different kernel versions (e.g. 4.x vs 5.x vs 6.x). And in the past sometimes for some devices (Like Android smart phones for mtp file transfer, or security keys) additional udev rules had to be added to make the Linux system recognize the device properly. Then there is firmware (closed source binary blobs) as well.
I remember a friend having issues with the WiFi card, with an old LTS version of Ubuntu, whereas a brand new Ubuntu version worked fine with the WiFi card. Glad to hear it all works for you, and welcome on board @ Planet Linux.

For Mint you could maybe repurpose the Debian instructions (install the firmware-iwlwifi package): https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Latitude7490
But I guess it's a weird issue since Intel cards are usually well supported. So are most Dell laptops in general. My usual approach is to type in something like "wiki linux dell 7480" into google. There are very little specific info around which leads me to believe everything usually works out of the box.
In case the thing with the button holding and power cord doesn't work, check your BIOS settings if it's disabled somewhere and then check the logfiles. "dmesg" and the boot output might contain the exact issue.

(Intel)[https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/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.

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.

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

I know you have been getting a lot of suggestions but have you tried Fedora or any of the rpm based distros?
Basically all Linux distros can trace everything back to three major ones: Debian, Arch and RHEL. (Also slack ware is a thing and there are many non major one). Since you tried Debian and arch families without success, I suggest you give the RHEL family a go. In my experience RHEL based distros have the best hardware compatibility.

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:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/wireless.html

@hellequin67 Tried this? https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=399427

30 comments