Plug n Play USB Wifi Dongle for Fedora?

Hi everyone,

I’m reviving a couple of my older laptops with Fedora 30 but I have had driver issues with my current USB dongle (driver breaks after kernel updates).

Is there any USB dongles that are plug and play that are natively supported by Fedora?
(Ideally AC compatible but not essential)

most realtek/atheros chipsets will work out of the box (don’t quote me on it though) never had an issue with them.

Heres a good cheap one

I recently used it with the latest fedora installer. worked fine.

there’s an ac version that says supports linux. I’d double check the chipset compatibility though. it uses the RTL8814AU. I dont see why it wouldnt work as long as you have the latest kernel

Maybe swap the internal ones for more modern Intel ones? What model laptops?

I don’t mess with dongles too often but if you go check the compatibility of dongles with Kali you will have a hard time going wrong. The Alfa awus036ach comes to mind but it’s a bit bigger than most.

I’ve got a Lenovo Think Edge 15 0301 and a HP Pavillion DV6 (not 100% on the exact sku)

The Lenovo’s has internal wifi is dead and the DV6 is horrendously slow.

I’d be happy to go more modern internal as along as they don’t break on every kernel update xD

I have yet to have wifi issues on any modern machine with fedora. The Intel cards are generally well supported as they are in a lot of oems.

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Looks like you might run into problems with the bios in those machines not working with other adapters but for the lenovo the intel 7260 would be a possible option.

dont know for the HP tho.

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As long as you go Intel, you’ll be fine. The drivers are built into the kernel, not modules, and certainly not reverse-engineered, so you’ll see solid performance and reliability.

This little guy:

Indeed, thats the one. It might not work though like I said, because of locks on what hardware in bios. In my anecdotal adventures, this isnt a huge problem.

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I’m gonna wing it and see if it works. The current one is dead anyway so I can’t really go backwards from here lol

It’s not a terrible price either, so worst case, you’re not out too much.

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Haven’t received my new Wifi card yet but it seems that there is a Wifi Whitelist… at least there was (hopefully) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I won’t know if the new card will work until I plug it in and try to boot. A portable usb Windows 10 install allowed me to install a custom BIOS (another new thing I learnt to do through all of this)

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When you get it, you might see if it will fit in the HP and try it there too.

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I couldnt find a whitelist bios for the HP so I have not touched it.

The card has finally arrived.

I run Arch Linux now btw

The 7260AC is up an going in my Thinkpad Edge 15 0301 :partying_face::partying_face:

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Does it for sure have that limitation? I never looked.

I didn’t know HP to have these sort of limitations. I very well could be wrong though.

I think it just depends on the gen over the manufacturer.

Ah, fair. I know HP is up there with the shitty things they do, but usually it boils down to shit build quality to save $2.50

Can confirm intel wifi cards work with linux out of the box on my desktop and laptop.