Linux frustrations.

[Typhoon1944]

I'm hoping someone will be able to help me in this forum. I've had a look around and can't find anything specific to my problem but that may just be because I seem to be going round in circles. I looked Linux many years ago but never really persevered with it. Hopefully I am going to university in a few months to study hacking so I had dual booted Kali with Windows 10 but was unable to get it to recognise my home router, despite it seeing other networks and also connecting to my android phone if I set it up as a hotspot. I asked this question in the Kali forums and did not get any replies but having searched on Google it seems the Kali forum members don't take kindly to new users as Kali is classed as an expert distribution so they will expect expert questions. More Googling suggested trying Mint as a more noob friendly option. So now I have a tri-boot setup. Unfortunately I have the same problem with Mint.

If I connect the laptop using an Ethernet cable it sees my home router and will also pull down the wifi settings. If the cable is removed, the wifi settings disappear. The wifi card is working as it will see my PS4 as an access point and will also randomly pick up other nearby access points, including the previously mentioned Android phone. I have checked Driver Manager and the only thing that shows up there is the Intel Microport (I think). The strange thing is, I previously had a Netgear router as my access point but changed it back to the original Sky access point thinking it was a problem with the Netgear. However, I have now set up an old Netgear range extender and connected that to the Sky router. Both Mint and Kali both pick it up and connect straight away. My router SSID is SKY***** and the range extender is SKY*****_EXT. I can't figure out what's going on and it's getting to the stage where I'm thinking about uninstalling both distro's and just learning Kali at university.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Pjotr]

Please generate an overview of your system like this:

- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);

- make the terminal window full screen, to avoid chopped lines;

- copy/paste this command into the terminal:

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inxi -Fxz

(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

- Press Enter.

- Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[Typhoon1944]

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nick@Nicks-Laptop ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: Nicks-Laptop Kernel: 4.10.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: HP (portable) product: HP Pavilion Gaming Notebook v: Type1ProductConfigId
           Mobo: HP model: 818E v: 91.1E Bios: Insyde v: F.84 date: 05/25/2017
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-6700HQ (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 20736
           clock speeds: max: 3500 MHz 1: 799 MHz 2: 829 MHz 3: 828 MHz 4: 799 MHz 5: 800 MHz 6: 799 MHz
           7: 902 MHz 8: 802 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Skylake Integrated Graphics bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.06hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.2.8 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.10.0-38-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: rtl8723be port: 4000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2250.5GB (0.7% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: Samsung_SSD_850 size: 250.1GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ST2000LM003_HN size: 2000.4GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 39G used: 8.1G (23%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.5C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 252 Uptime: 4 min Memory: 874.8/15884.2MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35

[Pjotr]

First install all available updates for level 1-4 by means of the ethernet (cable) connection, including new kernels.

For that, you can (temporarily) set Update Manager to the most aggressive update policy, or you can use this terminal command:

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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Afterwards, reboot.

If the problem still exists, please report back for the next thing to try.

[Typhoon1944]

nick@Nicks-Laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
[sudo] password for nick:
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease [102 kB]
Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [102 kB]
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/apps/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Ign:5 http://packages.linuxmint.com sylvia InRelease
Hit:6 http://packages.linuxmint.com sylvia Release
Get:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/universe amd64 Packages [320 kB]
Get:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease [102 kB]
Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages [736 kB]
Get:11 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/universe Translation-en [119 kB]
Get:12 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main i386 Packages [682 kB]
Get:13 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe amd64 Packages [592 kB]
Get:14 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe i386 Packages [547 kB]
Get:15 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe Translation-en [239 kB]
Hit:16 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Fetched 3,541 kB in 5s (639 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.

[Pjotr]

OK, are you on the latest 4.13 kernel now? Post the output of:

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uname -rv

[Typhoon1944]

There were some updates carried out when I ran Update Manager but it is saying everything is up to date, however this is the output of the command:

nick@Nicks-Laptop ~ $ uname -rv
4.10.0-38-generic #42~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 10 16:32:20 UTC 2017

[Pjotr]

Launch Update Manager - panel: View - Linux kernels

Install the latest kernel from the 4.13 series. Then reboot.

Does that help?

[Typhoon1944]

It says "You are currently using the following kernel: 4.10.0-38" If I click on the 4.13 tab in the Kernels section it says "4.13.0-36 Installed" so I'm confused.

[Pjotr]

It says "You are currently using the following kernel: 4.10.0-38" If I click on the 4.13 tab in the Kernels section it says "4.13.0-36 Installed" so I'm confused.

Do you currently have a dual boot with another Linux distro?

[Typhoon1944]

Yes, as I said in my initial post, I have Kali installed as I was going to be using it for studying when I go to university later in the year. I only had Kali installed previously though and had the same problem with not recognising my home router even when there was on one distro installed.

[Pjotr]

Boot into Kali and then update Grub in Kali. Reason: Kali's Grub is probably dominant right now.

Then reboot into Mint and check its active kernel again.

[Typhoon1944]

There seems to be conflicting information regarding that. Do I edit the /etc/default/grub file or is it done through the command line?

[Sir Charles]

Boot into Kali and then update Grub in Kali.

Once booted into Kali, run

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sudo update-grub

in a terminal. That should do it. Reboot back into Mint and check which kernel is active.

[Typhoon1944]

Yeah, I took a leap of faith and ran the update-grub command. It worked and update manager is now saying the kernel is 4.13.0-36 which is the most up to date. Mint still won't see my home router but as soon as I ran update-grub, Kali picked it up straight away, although the range extender is still the strongest signal.