Wifi not working after update - need kernel update

General Help
#10

Really makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What are they thinking?

You may also try using your Zorin Install disk to achive some function:

Also, you may scroll down to the other terminal commands.

If problem appeared after an update, you may check if it is something really simple like regdomain:

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/crda

REGDOMAIN=
(That is, blank) will work or you may have to have your country code.
REGDOMAIN=FCC
for United States
REGDOMAIN=GB
for Great Britain…
After changing your regdomain, you must reboot to see the effect.

#11

Ok, so I tried everything mentioned so far, with negative results.

  • Changed REGDOMAIN to DE for Germany and rebooted - no change
  • Tried to mount a Ubuntu-iso and let it be searched for drivers - CD kept unmounting as soon as it was being searched
  • Tethered an internet connection and got updates incl. the Zorin kernel - no change

What I noticed when I typed lshw -C network in the terminal was that it says *-network DEACTIVATED in the first line. That is probably the issue, but I would need to know how to change that…

#12

Try

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

(or run iwconfig in terminal first to grab your interface name if different)

#13

I already figured out that my wifi is called wlp2s0, but if I use ifconfig, it says the command is unknown…

#14

Guessing that means that

sudo ifconfig wlp2s0 up

did you no favors?

Check if under
/etc/modprobe.d
your controller is blacklisted.

#15

When I type that in, it says “command unknown”.

There is nothing there that resembles realtek or wifi, so I guess it’s not blacklisted.

#16

Dear Colindo,

I regret to inform you that I hate your computer.
Sincerely,
Aravisian

2 Likes
#17

Being new to Zorin and linux, I was wondering if there is a way to rollback the update that I made. I believe if I go back to mint Zorin 15.2, I would have my wifi back again…

#18

What kernel are you running, now?

uname -a

#19

It’s 15.3 now, not sure if that was since today or the earlier update a few weeks ago.

Edit: Sorry, the linux kernel is 5.4.0-42-generic.

#20

Ok, same kernel as me. I wonder if you need to rollback your kernel to the previous version.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=295894

As you can see in the thread above… Yes, you may get wifi back if you install Mint, now. But you could run into the same trouble later on Mint, too.
With every distro, you really run the same risks of updates with hardware compatibility. It’s up to us to help each other through them, on distros and on forums.

The above thread I just linked to also discusses changing the kernel and the firmware.

#21

I found out I need to install the deprecated package net-tools in order to use the command ifconfig.
Running the command now results in a description and a list with 0 dropped packages. Are you interested in anything specific, or shall I copy the whole text from the laptop?

#22

Details? Bring it on…

1 Like
#23

For ifconfig to work you have to install net-tools:

sudo apt-get install net-tools

#24

This is odd because I just ran ifconfig without any trouble and without needing to install anything.
How could Ifconfig be missing?

#25

@Aravisian I only know this because I had similar issues - can’t remember but think it might have been regarding the notebook as all desktops are on powerline adapters.

#26

I’m back. Had to wait 13h after using up all the post I can do on the first day…
This is the result of ifconfig

wlp2s0: flags=4098<BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 4c:eb:bd:ba:85:01 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

#27

Hmm…

Can you enter into terminal:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

You should see

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Can you change that to:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto wlp2s0
iface wlp2s0 inet dhcp

Run in terminal

sudo systemctl enable networking

Reboot and check…

#28

I had to wait another 8h after the last post. But that is fixed now

Somewhere in the wilds of the internet, I read yesterday that linux kernel 5.5 solves the problem. So I did a manual update to linux 5.5.0-generic following these instructions and now the wifi works again.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

2 Likes
#29

And another :heart: from me - once a post is marked as solution you can’t increase the LUV!

1 Like