I have two Intel NUC12 computers, both exactly the same, with Zorin OS. One of them will recognise my Netgear A6150 wifi adaptor, and the other one won’t. It does however recognise a lower range adaptor, but I don’t want to use that one. Similarly, one computer recognises the sound output through HDMI connection to a monitor with integrated sound, and the other one won’t recognise it at all. Yet so far as I know, the setup with both computers is exactly the same.
I am at a loss to explain this, and don’t know what to do. I am pretty new to Zorin OS and don’t know where to start to solve these issues.
@purplefreak It sounds to me like you are having a driver issue with the portable USB WiFi adapter on Linux
Taking a quick peek at this adapter, it looks to me, that it only supports windows and mac
It also states this in the product sheet so I’m guessing that you will not be able to use this adapter with ANY Linux distro and has nothing to do with Zorin.
Is the other lower range adapter also a USB type or is it internal?
Yes this is the device, and it is partly true what you say. However it works flawlessly on my other Linux computer (exactly the same make and operating system. I just plugged it in and it works. But for some reason, it won’t work on the other computer but so far as I know the specs are the same. The other USB adaptor is also an external one.
Well that is very interesting, kudos to the linux team that reverse engineered that adapter for the kernel! I guess logical thinking would then ask if the USB port damaged in any way preventing it from working correctly? Does a thumb drive work in that port? I have an old laptop where only 1 out of the 3 still work, unless I replace the motherboard. It may also be dirty and needs a good dust cleaning.
Another thing to try is to have a look at the output from the following command on both computers (with the adapter plugged in) to see if there are any differences:
lspci
This will show you all of the hardware peripherals that are recognized on the PCI bus. Maybe we can spot the problem or see a missing component.
If those prove fruitless, another thing I might try, if you are also technically fearless and want to verify that it is software related, remove the hard drive from the working one and see if it operates correctly in the “broken” one. If the hardware is identical, it should boot correctly on both to see if it works.
if the USB port damaged in any way preventing it from working correctly? Does a thumb drive work in that port?
Answer: No the port is not damaged, because the other adapter works in it, as do flash drives. As both computers are virtually new, there should be no problems with dirt or anything like that.
First let me ask if there is any data on this computer or have you just installed the OS at this point? Reason being you don’t want to lose any important data not backed up yet when playing around with hardware.
Is it possible to post the output from both computers with the adapter plugged in using the command:
lsusb
This should tell us if the card is even being found by the computer, where your first one it certainly is.
ser@user-NUC12WSKi7:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 045e:0812 Microsoft Corp. Microsoft® LifeCam Cinema™
Bus 003 Device 008: ID 0846:9055 NetGear, Inc.
Bus 003 Device 009: ID 0930:6544 Toshiba Corp. TransMemory-Mini / Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 Stick
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. 4-port hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 17ef:609f Lenovo Lenovo Wireless KB_Mouse KN100 WW
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 8087:0033 Intel Corp.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID b58e:9e84 Blue Microphones Yeti Stereo Microphone
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05e3:0626 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB3.1 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
user@user-NUC12WSKi7:~$
and these outputs are from the computer which is not working
ali@ali-minigen12:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 4621 (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 46a6 (rev 0c)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 464d (rev 02)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 466e (rev 02)
00:07.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 462f (rev 02)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Device 464f (rev 02)
00:0a.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 467d (rev 01)
00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 461e (rev 02)
00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 463e (rev 02)
00:0d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 466d (rev 02)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 51ed (rev 01)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Device 51ef (rev 01)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 51f0 (rev 01)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 51e8 (rev 01)
00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 51e9 (rev 01)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 51e0 (rev 01)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device 51d3 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 51b0 (rev 01)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 5182 (rev 01)
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Device 51c8 (rev 01)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 51a3 (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 51a4 (rev 01)
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983
56:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Device 15f3 (rev 03)
ali@ali-minigen12:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0846:9055 NetGear, Inc.
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. 4-port hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c534 Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 8087:0033 Intel Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05e3:0626 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB3.1 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
ali@ali-minigen12:~$
I am not trying to interfere but you could try this on the non-working machine. They also mention Secure Boot. Is it possible that one machine has Secure boot enabled and the other does not enabled?
Thank you for displaying this info from both computers and it looks like the non-working machine is identifying the WiFi usb receiver as ID 0846:9055 NetGear, Inc. just like the working one.
So, that rules out the physical issue.
This leads me to ask this question, did you have a working Ethernet connection when you installed the OS on both machines? Reason I ask is that I have a laptop and when I install my OS with a live internet connection, it does no recognize mi internal WIFI adapter. But when I use a USB adapter that allows me to have a hard wire connection to the internet, the installer can then install the proper software for the internal WIFI card. So once it completes, I just disconnect the hard wire adapter to use the Wifi.
I’m guessing that was not the case with the working computer?
I think that’s right, yes. I’ve only got wi-fi connections at the moment. and with the one that’s not working. i think the wifi adaptor was not plugged in when the installation was done. It must be something to do with how the installations were done. I am hopeful still of sorting this out myself, at least I am learning a few things about Linux, which is all new to me. Now I don’t know about Secure Boot, I will try looking that up and see if that’s the case.
I do not know the answer about secure boot. I believe that some of the Linux distros can handle secure boot and others do not. I also do not know about any anomalies that could occur by using secure boot with Linux. I have never used secure boot. I always go through the BIOS and disable anything I don’t want before installation.
I had that same problem but I am using a 32 Bit system and I could not get the Wi-Fi to work either no matter what I did. I down loaded MX Linux xfce 32 Bit and now the Wi-Fi works great.
I think it was that driver but don’t know for sure. I got tired of trying to get the other one running.
Similar story here. I didn’t know what it was but simply made sure all the updates were done and when I rebooted it everything worked. I have slowly come to realise that Linux is actually pretty clever, fetching the drivers that you need on its own and stuff. So all my wi-fi is working great now and I didn’t really have to do anything.
