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Hi fellow Gerbils, I branched out from Windows 8.1 Embedded on laptop and am messing around with Ubuntu. Everything is good so far however I have an issue I have not been able to fix with googling. I am having issues with network connecting over wireless. Randomly and every few minutes Firefox will hang and open tabs will continue to load, like a youtube video but and new tabs will just have "connecting" on the tab. Wireless still show's connected fine. If I go back from the tab that is working correctly with youtube it too will change to hang and "connecting". Let me know what you think. Sorry if it's unclear. 

I assume none of your other devices are having trouble on the WiFi?

It may be an issue specific to the WiFi chip in your laptop. Not all WiFi chips have good Linux driver support. Googling the specific model of WiFi chip may yield useful info.

If the problem is your WiFi chip, you can try the chip vendor's web site to see if there is an updated driver. If there is, you may need to build it from source code (this isn't as scary as it sounds, someone here can walk you through it).

Another possible workaround for dodgy Linux drivers is to use an external USB WiFi adapter that has better driver support. I've found that devices based on Ralink/MediaTek chipsets seem to work well.

If you need to replace your wireless and aren't afraid to open up your laptop, Intel wireless is the gold standard.

just brew it! wrote:

I assume none of your other devices are having trouble on the WiFi?

It may be an issue specific to the WiFi chip in your laptop. Not all WiFi chips have good Linux driver support. Googling the specific model of WiFi chip may yield useful info.

If the problem is your WiFi chip, you can try the chip vendor's web site to see if there is an updated driver. If there is, you may need to build it from source code (this isn't as scary as it sounds, someone here can walk you through it).

Another possible workaround for dodgy Linux drivers is to use an external USB WiFi adapter that has better driver support. I've found that devices based on Ralink/MediaTek chipsets seem to work well.

Correct no other devices have any issues on the same network. I am using the driver that was automatically detected and downloaded by Ubuntu. Adapter is Intel I believe on the Intel HM55 chipset. I may pick up a slim usb adapter to fix the issue. I think I have a Netgear stick lying around to test. I will look for the exact hardware as included "device manager" is not helping list full hardware details.  

bthylafh wrote:

If you need to replace your wireless and aren't afraid to open up your laptop, Intel wireless is the gold standard.

I've already upgraded the cpu on the laptop to i5 540M and remember the wireless adapter. Should be an easy upgrade if that route is possible. 

GeForce6200 wrote:

Correct no other devices have any issues on the same network. I am using the driver that was automatically detected and downloaded by Ubuntu. Adapter is Intel I believe on the Intel HM55 chipset. I may pick up a slim usb adapter to fix the issue. I think I have a Netgear stick lying around to test. I will look for the exact hardware as included "device manager" is not helping list full hardware details.

FWIW the "lspci" and "lsusb" CLI commands will often yield useful info that can help you identify devices in the system if the GUI is being unhelpful.

just brew it! wrote:

GeForce6200 wrote:

Correct no other devices have any issues on the same network. I am using the driver that was automatically detected and downloaded by Ubuntu. Adapter is Intel I believe on the Intel HM55 chipset. I may pick up a slim usb adapter to fix the issue. I think I have a Netgear stick lying around to test. I will look for the exact hardware as included "device manager" is not helping list full hardware details.

FWIW the "lspci" and "lsusb" CLI commands will often yield useful info that can help you identify devices in the system if the GUI is being unhelpful.

Got it, thanks. Realtek Semiconductor Co., ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
Looks like there are a few guides on ubuntuforums on how to install. I'll give that a try but with such an old system I can't see it being a new driver. 

Also found this: https://github.com/FreedomBen/rtl8188ce-linux-driver

Can't vouch for its quality or stability as I've never used it, but it looks like someone has taken it upon themselves to create an (allegedly) improved version of the driver for this chip. It appears to be actively maintained.

As far as the guides on the Ubuntu forum go, I'd take anything that is older than 2-3 years with a grain of salt, as a lot can change in terms of driver/kernel support in that amount of time. If there's a recent guide, that would be worth a try before going down the rabbit hole with the above linked github project.

Edit: Hmm... just noticed that one of the bug reports filed against that github driver is that on 16.04 the system continues to use the stock driver even after installing the replacement one. Might need to blacklist the stock driver to force it to pick up the new one if that's the case.

Edit 2: Realtek has been notorious for Linux driver issues. Prior to 2012 or so some of their Gb wired stuff and audio codecs had random issues on Linux. The wireless stuff can still be somewhat hit-or-miss depending on model (as you've discovered).