Good Dual Band Wifi for Linux Ubuntu

[Guest]

My computer has Linux Ubuntu running on it and right now it doesn't have Wireless internet. And I cannot find any Wireless adopters that have been confirmed to work with it, I'd want preferably dual band and I don't care if it's pcie, usb, or whatever. I've been looking for something for a while and whenever I think I find one with support, the reviews for the product say it does not support Linux. So are there any reasonably priced Linux supported Wifi adapters, or will I have to use ethernet forever?

[moriel5]

You should go by chipset, not by final product, as that will make your life a lot easier.

 

Currently, you will get the best support with Intel WiFi chipsets, and Qualcomm is a close second place (perhaps like 90% as good on Linux).

Broadcom works very well on some chipsets, while Ralink and Mediatek perform alright, they are not at the same level.

Avoid Realtek at all costs, since it is a huge headache to get them to run stably, and when they do run, there is a very noticeable deficiency in comparison to the others (except for Ralink, there is less of a difference between their performances), and it will require a bit more CPU power as well, lacking the hardware-based management found on the better brands (this is also true on Windows, where it can be even worse, as I had faced on my laptop (this was the final trigger for me to move over to Linux, and later I had switched over to Intel and never looked back since)).

 

PCIe is a better choice, as you'll have more bandwidth, which will translate into better performance with lower latency.

I recommend you to just buy the Intel Wireless-AC 9260 (the best card on the market, with a very comfortable price (somewhere around $15-20), along with the Fenvi FV-102 M.2 to PCIe adapter (available for about the same price), on AliExpress (Fenvi is an official Intel distributor, it would seem).

Sometimes Fenvi also has sales, which drop the price for each product by about $5, which is even better considering their level of support (one of the best I have had on AliExpress).

 

We had recently upgraded the entire household to these choices, and since I had given my card and adapter to my sister, for her new desktop, I'll be ordering another one of each when I'll be able to for myself.

[kevdagoat]

6 hours ago, moriel5 said:

Currently, you will get the best support with Intel WiFi chipsets

I have an Intel m-pcie wifi card (dual-band) and immediately worked without installation of drivers when booting into Ubuntu for the first time.

[moriel5]

As expected, since the drivers are included in the kernel.

Just out of curiosity, what card do you have, is it the Intel Wireless-AC 7260 by any chance?

[kevdagoat]

Can’t remember exactly 

[Montgomery C Burns]

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[moriel5]

On 10/28/2018 at 3:23 AM, Montgomery C Burns said:

TP-Link T6E wireless network card works on Dedia-based Linux distributions.
If the card drivers are not ready in the kernel they are easy to install.
All you have to do is run the following command at the terminal.

 

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

 

Functionality tested by Linux Mint 19, kernel 4.15.0-38

That has a Broadcom card (BCM4360), according to WikiDevi, which makes it a good candidate when it works (which in this case it does, but only after installing the semi-closed source driers), however I still believe that going with an Intel 9260 and an M.2-to-PCIe adapter would be a better choice, since it is both cheaper and more modular, thereby allowing:

1. Future upgrades to be cheaper.

2. If the card fails (which it shouldn't), it is cheaper to replace, plus it does not take up as much space.

3. Bluetooth support built-in (the Intel 9260, for example, has BT5.0) (the BCM4360 does support BT5.0, however it would appear that TP-Link opted not to use the model with BT included).

4. Allowing upgrades to laptops, if need be (without the adapter).

5. Intel having better drivers, the 9260 may (not necessarily) achieve the same performance as the BCM4360, despite the BCM4360 having 3x3 MIMO and the Intel 9260 only having 2x2 MIMO.

6. The Intel 9260 requires much less power, thus it generated much less heat, than the BCM4360.

 

Interestingly, it would appear that the Intel 9260 actually has a higher theoretical maximum speed than the BCM4360 (1.73Gbts vs. 1.3Gbts), partially due to it supporting a wider spectrum (160Mhz in-between bands vs. 80Mhz in-between bands), and on Linux specifically (Windows is another story, closed drivers being rampant there), I believe that the Intel 9260 will outperform the BCM4360, if only because of drivers (Broadcom, when supported are very good, but not at the same level as Intel, which is much more active on the open-source front).

 

By the way, usually it does not matter what distro it is as to the driver support, so long as it is mainlined, which as it turns out, the BCM4360 isn't yet (the drivers are currently available out of tree, with a PPA for Ubuntu-based distros, the AUR for Arch, and the source on Broadcom's site, while the Intel 9260 has been fully supported since kernel 4.16 (current is 4.18.16, and my kernel, which does not have any additional drivers over the main kernel (Solus-provided, not compiled from source), does not yet have the BCM4360 drivers yet.

 

Sources:

WikiDevi (TP-Link T6E): https://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_Archer_T9E

Intel ARK (Intel Wireless-AC 9260): https://ark.intel.com/products/99445/Intel-Wireless-AC-9260

Broadcom (BCM4360): https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/wireless-lan-infrastructure/bcm4360

 

Update: The BCM4360 may be supported by the Linux mainline, I may have made a mistake.

@Montgomery C Burns, can you please test that, by checking in "Software and Updates" whether theT9E is using proprietary drivers or not?

Update 2: Never mind, the (reverse-engineered) open-source drivers are included in the kernel, however you still need to install the closed-source firmware for them to work.