• woelkchen@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Outdated for Linux Intel, still valid for Broadcom, probably not so bad for somewhat recent Realtek and AMD/Mediatek (last I’ve read is that Mediatek WiFi hardware sucks in general and disconnects happen on Windows, so the same happening on Linux would be the fault of the Linux driver).

    EDIT: Accidentally wrote Linux instead of Intel.

    • SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      I can absolutely confirm it’s still valid for Realtek. I had one using the RTL8812AU chipset that basically no kernel version nor distro provided out of the box, so I constantly had to download a third-party driver from Github and manually patch it via dkms, or use a third-party repository containing the driver package… and then the driver broke so badly that it wouldn’t let me update at all unless I uninstalled it, which left me without the internet I needed to actually update, effectively leaving me unable to update until I could buy another one from Mediatek that’s compatible.

      And said Mediatek wifi is really slow, so I just went from the frying pan into the fire…

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I can absolutely confirm it’s still valid for Realtek. I had one using the RTL8812AU chipset

        Yeah, and I was explicitly writing about recent chips. RTL8812AU isn’t recent. The very latest Windows driver is from 2018, so the chip itself was released a good while before that.

        I know exactly what you had to go through because I had to do the same with mine a couple of years ago but since then for newer chips Realtek started contributing to Linux itself:

        which left me without the internet I need

        USB tethering your WiFi-connected phone would have worked as stop gap just as well. I had to do that a lot.

        • SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          Ahh I see, thanks for clarifying. It seems that where I live mostly only has the older Realtek chips for sale, so I likely mostly had bad luck.

          I tried USB tethering, but it wouldn’t work for some reason… I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think either the phone or my computer couldn’t detect each other.

    • Prismey@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      I installed linux on a new pc 2 days ago, had no problem with the wifi drivers. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the wifi is integrated on the motherboard, but it was up and running without any tweeking from me (unlike windows)

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        But was the cause the Linux driver or the hardware? If the fault is the hardware and the experience on Linux is the same as on Windows, it’s feature parity.

        If in doubt, get an Intel WiFi card. Even in otherwise not upgradeable notebooks those are usually not soldered on. Also whatever is in a Steam Deck OLED looks like a good pick.

        • SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          Does Intel sell wifi cards that use USB rather than PCI slots? My motherboard doesn’t have the slot for a wifi PCIe card, and I’ve only seen Intel sell those :/

          • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Realtek upstreamed their drivers in 2020 or 2021. I got rid of my last notebook with Realtek hardware for unrelated reasons.