Can anyone recommend a Wi-Fi adapter, either PCI or USB that works with Linux (Ubuntu 14.04 in my case)?
Thanks.
M
If you search the reviews for this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-WN851ND-300Mbps-Wireless-Adapter/dp/B0019EMF2M
there are plenty of references to it working “out of the box” in Ubuntu 12.04 … and this (which is about the same card):
http://www.linux-hardware-guide.com/uk/2012-10-07-tp-link-tl-wn851nd-w-lan-pci
where the comment states “Worked out-of-the-box on my Ubuntu 14.04, no driver install required.”
So I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet, unless either
a) You meant PCIe instead of PCI ?
and/or
b) You’d prefer USB ?
I have one in ‘The Penguin’s Second Hand Linux Emporium’
Thanks both.
PCI is fine - the board has PCI and PCIe.
I would prefer USB except for the fact that it seems to be slower/less reliable from what I’ve read. The only reason I’d consider USB is that I’ll have to lose another card in order to accommodate this one, but it’s a card I haven’t used in ages, so I don’t really mind.
I think I’ll get it from ebuyer - I’m placing an order with them which falls short of the £50 minimum for free delivery. This will make the difference. I never pay ebuyer for delivery as they’re usually quicker than they estimate and even if you pay extra for a specific day (when you’ll be at home) they’re likely to ‘upgrade’ you and send it sooner, on a day when you’re out! They can’t seem to grasp that this is NOT an upgrade. It’s the only fault I’ve found with them.
M
There are PCIe models if you’d prefer me to find you one of those ?
or USB ?
Just let me know, and I’ll do some digging.
I agree with you about ebuyer … great company as far as returns policy and service but their postage setup is a PITA
I do wish they’d go back to “free postage” (included in price), where they posted stuff immediately.
Tracking an item from them suggests it’s all posted the same way, but if you choose a cheaper option they just hang on to it for a few days before posting it :
Thanks Mark.
Would PCIe make a difference? I would have thought the bottleneck would be our broadband speed (4mb) or the router (B & G only)…
re Ebuyer. I wouldn’t mind if they stuck to what they advertise. If I opt for free 5 day delivery, I’m prepared to wait 5 days. But if I pay extra for delivery on a particular day, but it arrives 24 hours earlier and I end up getting a card and collecting it from Royal Mail or TNT, or whomever, that is not an ‘upgrade’. It’s exactly what I paid extra to avoid.
No it wouldn’t make any difference speed wise … either bus can easily handle that data thoughput, it’s simply a case of preference such as card seperation for airflow, or using slots you have more of, or simply flipping a coin 
That’s what I thought…
What about USB3 vs USB2? Same story, I think.
USB3.0 is a LOT faster than USB2.1 so you may notice a small difference for Wireless N, and probably a marked difference for Wireless AC , but not for B/G
But the USB device has to specifically be designed for USB3.0 to take advantage … a USB2.1 device in a USB3.0 socket will still only perform at USB2.1 speeds
Thanks Mark,
I’m going for the PCI option. But now looking for a graphics card to throw into the equation before I order…
M
Is that a request for suggestions ? … if so, which socket (PCIe) ? … and what’s your budget ? or what do you expect from it (games) ?
Not a request, though suggestions always welcome…
And no, not games. Just a nice, cheap, PCIe, bottom of range will do, as long as it supports linux and dual-monitors(DVI+DVI or DVI+HDMI).
Don’t spend time you can’t afford though. I always get there in the end…
Cheers.
M
How about one of these
or if you want 2GB of memory
I’m suggesting nVidia because Ubuntu 16.04 (and therefore Peppermint 7 when it comes out) has no proprietary graphics drivers for ATI/AMD yet, and may never have (though the open source drivers have come a long way, and are pretty much as good in most usage cases), you can thank ATI/AMD for that.
You may want to read this posting by Emegra to set up the graphics drivers
http://linuxforums.org.uk/index.php?topic=12877.msg105489#msg105489
Thanks Mark,
(We’re getting off topic by the way… If this goes on, you might want to split it sooner than later).
I don’t think those 2 cards will work - my motherboard has a PCIe 16x connector for the graphics card, whereas one of these is 8x and the other is unspecified, but doesn’t look like 16x.
By the way, Ubuntu is running very happily with an ATI card in the PC I’m typing on. No trouble installing or at any other stage. The previous (failed) card was also ATI. Same story…
You can stick a PCIe x8 card in a PCIe x16 slot … in fact you can stick a PCie x1 card in a PCIe x16 slot
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pci-express/4/
They are both x8 cards, it’s just that the Gigabyte card is full length (with half the pins not actually doing anything) … read the above link.
I’ve finally placed my bets.
Now we await the lottery which is Ebuyer’s shipping policy…
Edit.
Ordered on Sunday - free 5 day delivery by Royal Mail or Parcelforce.
Arrived at 10:50 on Wednesday, via Yodel!
Luckily I was in, which was a bonus.
I’ll post back once I’ve installed them…
Cool … good luck
I just fitted the TP-LINK TL-WN851ND and Ubuntu doesn’t see it, although XP goes into the usual ‘found new hardware’ routine.
I assume it’s a driver problem, although the Linux hardware guide says it’s supported out of the box since Ubuntu 10.04.
How do I update (or rather, install) a driver in Linux? Do I just download and run? Will the mere existence of a driver allow Ubuntu to see the card?
Edit:
According to linux-hardware-guide.com, “kernel module ath9k is used as a driver. This module gets loaded automatically”.
lspci returns…
04:03.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
dmesg returns…
[ 16.313914] ath: phy0: Couldn’t reset chip
[ 16.313939] ath: phy0: Unable to initialize hardware; initialization status: -5
[ 16.313970] ath9k 0000:04:03.0: Failed to initialize device
[ 16.314355] ath9k: probe of 0000:04:03.0 failed with error -5
[ 18.582717] EXT4-fs (sdc5): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro
[ 19.033201] init: failsafe main process (679) killed by TERM signal
[ 19.131425] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.17
[ 19.131443] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[ 19.131445] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 19.131454] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 19.131456] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 19.131460] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[ 19.141002] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 19.141005] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[ 19.141013] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[ 19.144324] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 19.144329] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 19.144334] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[ 19.615740] init: cups main process (781) killed by HUP signal
[ 19.615750] init: cups main process ended, respawning
[ 20.410485] audit_printk_skb: 183 callbacks suppressed
[ 20.410488] type=1400 audit(1466960437.366:73): apparmor=“STATUS” operation=“profile_replace” profile=“unconfined” name=“/usr/sbin/cups-browsed” pid=1017 comm=“apparmor_parser” …among other things (do you need the rest?)
sudo lshw -c network returns…
*-network:0
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 00:50:8d:be:be:f3
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.0.2 latency=64 link=yes maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:23 ioport:be00(size=256) memory:fdbff000-fdbff0ff memory:fda00000-fda1ffff
*-network:1
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 1
bus info: pci@0000:04:01.0
logical name: eth1
version: 10
serial: 00:50:8d:be:be:f4
size: 10Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half latency=64 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
resources: irq:22 ioport:bc00(size=256) memory:fdbfe000-fdbfe0ff memory:fda20000-fda3ffff
*-network:2 UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 3
bus info: pci@0000:04:03.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: cap_list
configuration: latency=168
resources: memory:fdbe0000-fdbeffff
Can you post the output from:
lspci -vnn | grep -i net
Here it is Mark,
mike@mike-ubuntu:~$ lspci -vnn | grep -i net
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet [10ec:8167] (rev 10)
04:01.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet [10ec:8167] (rev 10)
04:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:002d] (rev 01)
mike@mike-ubuntu:~$