Mageia forum

It's my second attempt at buying a new laptop, and this time the wifi adapter seems to be a problem to get to work.

I have an HP Pavilion 15-au183sa (http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/ ... 2-pdt.html). The wireless adapter is given as 802.11ac 1x1 in the description and appears as Intel AC3168 in the Windows 10 device manager.

Wifi works under Windows. I tried to use the Mageia 5 Live DVD, but the wireless adapter is not even detected (I checked in the network applet and in the hardware browser in the Mageia Control Centre).

I know that the Mageia 5.1 installation DVD has a more recent kernel than the Live DVD, but I'm worried that the shop won't accept a return once I install a new OS. I want to use Mageia, so I want to return the hardware if it doesn't play well with Mageia.

Does anyone know whether the wifi can be made to work with this adapter in Mageia? Thank you.

Here's the latest from Intel: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... 05511.html

Kinda looks like that wireless chip is problematic:
https://www.google.com/search?sclient=p ... geia+Linux

For testing I'd just install Mageia on a USB stick/drive.

I went through some funny business with a HP not long ago.

From the terminal, as root, can you run:

Code: Select all

rfkill list all

For some reason mine was hard/soft blocked in no particular order until I unblocked them: took a bit of time to work out

had this worry when i got my laptop, guarentees etc.
so used clonezilla to backup windows 8 at the time, and then installed mageia.
could always restore windows.

if you do follow my advise please make sure that you use latest version of clonezilla, and ensure windows 10 is supported,
as ive not checked recently.

regards peter

Hello
It seems Intel AC3168 is supported by iwlwifi since kernel 4.6, so you need Mageia 6.
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/use ... rs/iwlwifi

The iwlwifi module in current 4.4 mga5 kernels at least supports 3160 series, it would help to see the vendor and device ID for that chipset to know whether it's supported or not.
But judging e.g. by http://askubuntu.com/questions/827795/h ... rd-to-work seems it needs newer firmware and maybe even a newer kernel then 4.6, so seems no mga5 support for that one.

You could try to fiddle with backports https://backports.wiki.kernel.org/index ... umentation but better get a different laptop, I'd say.

I will bet that backporting support for the AC3168 into the current iwl-7000.c is almost trivial. I don't have one here or I'd be tempted to do it.

How far out is support for that device in the main line, and how important is this device to us today?

Thank you for the replies. In the meantime, I had also found the information that the device should be supported from kernel 4.6 onwards.

I tried the Cauldron Live DVD. I have a different problem with it because it can't start the X server. That's only relevant for present purposes because it prevents me from testing anything in desktop mode.

I started drakconnect in text mode (and used iwconfig and rfkill for some double checks as far as my limited knowledge allows). The wireless device has an entry in iwconfig and is not blocked. With drakconnect I can see my router (and the neighbours'). After entering the password, I get a message saying that problems occurred during the connectivity test. But this has happened to me in Mageia 5 too, and the connection ended up working. So I can tell now that Cauldron can see the wifi adapter and my router. It's a start.

Unfortunately returning the laptop doesn't seem possible. My receipt says that I can return the hardware if the package is still unopened (obviously not the case) or faulty (not the case from the vendor's perspective because they sold me a Windows laptop, and Windows works). So it looks as if I'd have to hope that Mageia 6 will work well with the hardware.

Somewhere in the office, I have one of those USB wifi dongles, which has an older chipset. Perhaps that will work in the meantime. I'll probably have to install Mageia on the hard drive to try this out, but if an exchange or refund is impossible that's not a problem.

You are asking for the vendor and device ID. How can I find this information?

Run lsusb and you will get a list of the usb devices. You will get a general name along with a string like 0b2c:4a12 and this string carries the vendor and device information.

I'm just simply having no luck in my attempts to buy a new laptop. This machine developed a sound problem within a few days of purchase, so I took the opportunity to return it to the shop and try yet another model. I've never had so many problems before.

Anyway, we seem to have established that Mageia 6 should support this chipset but Mageia 5.1 doesn't. I don't have the machine any more to test, so I'm marking this thread as solved.