Two distros installed; wifi works on one, but not the other!

Questions about Wi-Fi and other network devices, file sharing, firewalls, connection sharing etc
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
Mike Walsh

Two distros installed; wifi works on one, but not the other!

Post by Mike Walsh »

Hi, everybody.

First, some background.

I have an elderly (though 'hi-spec', for its day) HP/Compaq Presario desktop PC. It's running the AMD Athlon 64 (K8), 3 Gb RAM, and a Western Digital 160 Gb HDD. It's using the RS480/SB 400 chipset combimation combination, with the ATI Radeon XPress 200 graphics chipset incorporated into the SB400.

I'm a Windows XP refugee. I've been messing around with these things since the days of the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX81, so that gives you some idea of just HOW long; I'm not exactly a novice, although relatively new to Linux (and LOVING it!) I dipped my toe into the Linux ocean about 2 months ago, and haven't looked back since! The Presario is running Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in a dual-boot config; I have Lubuntu 14.04 installed on an even older Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and I have 'Precise' Puppy 5.1.7 installed on, and running from, a SanDisk Cruzerblade flashdrive.

I normally connect the Compaq to the 'net via Ethernet, but occasionally have to unplug it when I want to use the Dell on the 'net, because for years it has refused point-blank to work with any kind of wifi adapter...and I've tried, believe me. Probably a hardware failaure somewhere internally, although it works just fine with the RJ45. It suffices, since I don't use the Dell very often; it's a 'brick', and weighs a ton.....the battery alone weighs more than a modern netbook!

On these occasions I use a TP-Link WN-725N wifi adapter on the Compaq so I can maintain a connection, especially if I need both machines up-and-running because I'm troubleshooting, or something like that. Now, this is my question:-

The curious thing is that the wifi adapter works perfectly under Ubuntu, but under Mint, I get barely more than 3% signal showing in the networking panel. I'm wondering if this has got anything to do with the difference in the kernels; I can't see that it's hardware-related, since both O/Ss are using the exact same hardware...(!)

Ubuntu 14.04 is currently running the 3.13.0-30 kernel.
Mint 17 Cinnamon is currently running the 3.13.0-24 kernel.

Would this account for the difference in performance between the two?

I see in Mint-Update that the 3.13.0-30 kernel IS available, but would installing it cause more problems than it would cure?

Any advice would be appreciated, guys.

Mike.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
JeremyB
Level 21
Level 21
Posts: 13771
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:17 am

Re: Two distros installed; wifi works on one, but not the ot

Post by JeremyB »

I doubt the kernel will cause any issue in mint
Locked

Return to “Networking”