I'm no pro, so I don't know if your solution would work.
But I've had a cheap USB Ethernet dongle lying around and I've had to use that whenever WiFi hasn't worked on my laptop (without an Ethernet port) with fresh distro installs.
this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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This is good advice.
No, that won't work on a live system.
Have you actually tried booting from a Live USB on the laptop in question? It might be that WiFi works there just out of the box. Unless you have some super weird wifi adapter (or use an old Linux version), it should just work.
The WiFi on both laptops didn’t work at first. On the ethernet one a kernel update fixed it. I guess I’ll have to source a usb dongle.
That's odd... any idea what the model of the WiFi adapter is? Is it a very recent machine?
It's an Asus Vivobook X1504Z that I bought last month. I just tried the latest Ubuntu on a live USB and just like Mint there is no wifi or bluetooth.
I think my best bet is waiting for the USB wifi dongle to arrive tomorrow.
you could try LMDE (Mint but with Debian underneath instead of Ubuntu). But I kinda doubt that this would help. You probably won't notice a difference in the user experience.
It's always a good idea to test out everything in the live system before committing to the install. I'd also check, if your ISO is the latest version. I've installed mint on quite a few machines but I've never had any problems of that sort.
The WiFi on both laptops didn’t work at first. On the ethernet one a kernel update fixed it. I guess I’ll have to source a usb dongle.
Not that I don't believe you, but how are you sure that a kernel update is what fixed the Wi-Fi issue? Can you tell me how you came to that conclusion?
Also, have you tested the boot drive on the other laptop? It's very likely that it has a different Wi-Fi device and therefore uses a different driver in the kernel. Let me know and I'll help you as much as I can 🙂
Well the USB WiFi works fine.
However now my issue is I can’t install Mint onto the laptop. It keeps saying it can’t install GRUB onto the SSD.
I think it’s because even though I’ve deleted the windows partitions using the Mint installer the ASU’s BIOS still has Windows Bootloader as an option.
Hopefully taking the SSD out of the laptop and fully erasing it will let me install Mint.
EDIT.
I solved the issue. The Asus laptop uses a MediaTek wifi and bluetooth chip that isn't supported by Linux. I've ordered a TP-Link mini USB adapter so hopefully that works.
When I installed Mint on the laptop with the ethernet port there was no WiFi adapters found. So I updated the kernel, restarted and WiFi was working.
I used the same live USB on both laptops.
Unfortunately my other laptop has no ethernet port so I must wait for a USB dongle to be delivered.
This is a slightly more complex/involved answer, but you could try updating the kernel manually.
I couldn't find a good video or forum tutorial, but you can download the kernel as a tarball from here and put it on a USB (or even use your phone as a USB). From there, I'm not entirely sure what you'd need to do, but it may be as simple as opening Update Manager and selecting the kernel from the external drive (I unfortunately don't have access to my Mint laptop to test for you right now).
Could try a different distribution, one that is packaged with a newer kernel? Maybe the latest Ubuntu? Or maybe PopOS? I know this is a Mint thread, just trying to problem solve.
No, you can't.
Why not use the same method that worked last time? Do you not have a wired connection anymore?
Anyway, if a kernel update fixed it last time, it's highly likely the latest ISO will have that updated kernel already. Just try seeing if Wifi works from the live USB.
One of my laptops doesn't have ethernet. Also the bluetooth doesn't work either with the same live USB. I've ordered a USB wifi dongle and i'll try that.