[SOLVED] Dell Inspiron 3511 No WiFi After LM XFCE 20.2 install

[greid]

Hi folks,

First time installing Linux Mint.

Purchased a new Dell Inspiron 3511 with Windows 10. Did Windows setup and ensured a everything worked (WiFi, sound, etc.).
On my old LM machine, downloaded XFCE 20.2 64 bit and made a bootable USB drive.
Overwrote Windows on 3511 and installed LM via USB. Install went fine, except for no WiFi connection, which seems to be a common problem.

System info:

Code: Select all

glen@glen-Inspiron-15-3511:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-74-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 15 3511 v: N/A serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 05PD08 v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.2.0 date: 06/19/2021 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 36.3 Wh condition: 40.0/40.0 Wh (100%) model: COM DELL 927N515 
           status: Discharging 
           Device-1: hidpp_battery_2 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M325 charge: 55% (should be ignored) 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 23961 
           Speed: 4100 MHz min/max: 400/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 4100 2: 2047 3: 4100 4: 1326 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel vendor: Dell driver: N/A bus ID: 0000:00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: fbdev unloaded: modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~77Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.0 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 0000:00:1f.3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-74-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: N/A port: 3000 
           bus ID: 0000:01:00.0 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter type: USB driver: r8152 bus ID: 1-3:9 
           IF: enx5c857e34c193 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 16.53 GiB (13.9%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: PM991a NVMe 128GB size: 119.24 GiB 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd v: 0.6 
           bus ID: 0000:00:0e.0 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 116.38 GiB used: 8.26 GiB (7.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 81.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 200 Uptime: 16h 55m Memory: 7.52 GiB used: 1.42 GiB (18.8%) Init: systemd 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 inxi: 3.0.38 

Purchased a USB-Ethernet Adapter to be able to hard wire.
Per other threads like this one, I looked at Driver Manager and here is what I get:



Any help is appreciated.

[sleeper12]

Let's see what this shows:

Code: Select all

 rfkill list && iwconfig && mokutil --sb-state 

[greid]

I apologize on the delayed response.

Code: Select all

glen@glen-Inspiron-15-3511:~$  rfkill list && iwconfig && mokutil --sb-state 
1: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
lo        no wireless extensions.

enx5c857e34c193  no wireless extensions.

SecureBoot enabled

[sleeper12]

Disable secure boot in Bios/Uefi, then see if wifi works.

[greid]

I disabled SecureBoot in the boot configuration and now the WiFi does work. Thanks!
Question -- are there ramifications to leaving SecureBoot disabled?

[sleeper12]

I disabled SecureBoot in the boot configuration and now the WiFi does work. Thanks!
Question -- are there ramifications to leaving SecureBoot disabled?

No, you should be fine.

[RogueAugustus]

Yeah, I know this has bee solved, but thought I'd add something that worked for me on my newish HP laptop with a Realtek wireless device: when the Driver Manager offered the choice to use the driver for Realtek or "Do not use the device" I chose the latter option and lo-and-behold wireless was active and functioning ...

[zidgear1357]

I leave the secure boot enabled... see my instruction below:

F12 to boot into BIOS
Secure Boot = enabled
Secure Boot Mode = Deployed Mode
Expert Key Management = Off

Live boot...
Install drivers of: oem-somerville-warcraft-intel-meta, RTL8821CE-dkms, oem-somervill-meta ... those will be updated again in the update manager below!

restart -> confirm wireless is working!

reset update sources
install all updates
restart again