That's very weird.

I would try a live USB with a different distro. If it's broken there too, it's probably a hardware issue.

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboy

Quoting: ValckTry "ping"-ing the IP address of your router first, ie.

All I got was:
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.1.24 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 0ms
That means it's not even receiving a response from the modem / router, right?

How does that work, when my modem / router can "see" the computer connected in the Starlink app (Starlink manage their modem / router exclusively via an app, rather than via a Web-based interface)?

All that tells you is it can't find a route via IPv4 (ie. addresses that look like "123.45.67.89", aka. "dotted quad"). If it can "see" the router, that means you have a _physical_ (albeit intangible) connection, and the only possible explanation is that you do have a route via IPv6 //only//, which is clearly a misconfiguration issue. (edit: it might be intentional in some scenarios)

The logical next step would be to try "ping -6" or "traceroute -6" for IPv6 (that's these type of addresses "1234:5678:90ab:cdef::::ff", larger address space, more intimidating looking, ie. more modern);

$ man traceroute
tells us "-6" for IPv6, and "-i wlp1s0" to use the wireless interface

so give it a try with
$ traceroute -6 -i wlp1s0 the:IPv6:address:::of:your:router

or the router's DNS address, if it is supposed to have one ("fritz.box" comes to mind)
or failing that,even the DNS address of some public host like google the diagnostic DNS address
$ traceroute -6 -i wlp1s0 example.com

and it *should* give you at least *some* result, at least up to your router.

After that, it's back to configuring your routing/DNS, and that depends on what type of distro you use, and is best looked up in the documentation that comes with it.

Last edited by Valck on 14 October 2024 at 7:01 am UTC

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThis computer has the Centrino Wireless-N 135 (rev c4) chipset... I always thought Intel generally had pretty good hardware support under Linux-based operating systems, but your theory is certainly plausible.

I might have to see if anybody else is complaining about this particular chipset online...

Your chipset is a year older than mine. It is supported by the same kernel-level driver as mine. I think it very likely that you could be experiencing the same problem.

(FYI, which is why I don't think that trying a different distro will give you a conclusive answer. If you dual booted with Windows like I do, that would give you a better answer. My chipset works flawlessly in Windows.)

Perhaps Intel's support on newer Wi-Fi chipsets is good, but from what I've seen, the support for older hardware is not that strong. Rather than asking that Intel improve the driver, most of the online comments take a more resigned tone and suggest replacing the problematic Wi-Fi chipsets instead.

That being said, if the more technically savvy commenters can come up with a solution that benefits both of us, I'm all for it!

Last edited by Caldathras on 14 October 2024 at 5:19 pm UTC

Quoting: CaldathrasRather than asking that Intel improve the driver, most of the online comments take a more resigned tone and suggest replacing the problematic Wi-Fi chipsets instead.

Yeah, I'm not doing that... This is an "all-in-one" computer and uses laptop-like components, so it would be pretty easy to replace the Wi-Fi module, as long as it's not soldered to the motherboard or anything crazy like that (I haven't soldered anything in years and years!) - but this is a pretty old "spare" computer and with the exception of the Wi-Fi module, has already been upgraded as far as the motherboard allows; this computer will likely be replaced entirely, once it's financially feasible for me to do so.

Quoting: CaldathrasYour chipset is a year older than mine. It is supported by the same kernel-level driver as mine. I think it very likely that you could be experiencing the same problem.

Quoting: LoudTechieApperantly this is a common issue for this chipset:
https://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?299700-WiFi-hardblocked
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/centos-111/centos-7-wifi-is-not-working-intel-centrino-wireless-n-135-a-4175543308/
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/wireless.html

So without replacing the chipset, it looks like using ethernet cable is going to be the best Real World solution... Not the solution I wanted, but at least I know what the problem is now and like always, the Gaming on Linux Community has proven it is worth its weight in gold.

Thanks, guys and girls!

Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 14 October 2024 at 10:03 pm UTC

Often dmesg can give you an idea of maybe where to start looking for what the issue is. If you know the name of the driver modules(obtainable via the lsmod command), you can search dmesg like so: sudo dmesg |grep $DRIVER_MODULE_NAME( ex: sudo dmesg |grep iwlwifi ). if there was an issue or some kind of warning it may or may not show up in dmesg. you can also use sudo dmesg |grep Intel for info about Intel devices discovered.

you can also try unloading the wifi modules and reloading them in verbose mode and see what info is produced:
sudo rmmod $DRIVER_MODULE_NAME
sudo modprobe -v $DRIVER_MODULE_NAME

that might produce some kind of useful message.

finally sudo dmesg |less will let you step thru all the kernel messages from boot, allowing you to follow the driver loading and other boot processes to see if you can spot an error or warning message

Quoting: Cyba.CowboySo without replacing the chipset, it looks like using ethernet cable is going to be the best Real World solution... Not the solution I wanted, but at least I know what the problem is now and like always, the Gaming on Linux Community has proven it is worth its weight in gold.

Or el cheapo USB WiFi dongle.