Installing and getting wifi to work

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

I am trying to get a freshly bought refurbished fw 13 to work and talk to the wifi network.

First, why is it so hellishly difficult to get this to boot off a usb stick? What fn-elbow-# combo do i have to use? It keeps going directly to the (non-wifi-enabled) system i recently installed.

Finally, what is the incantation for turning on the wifi entenna? I tried installing the extra stuff that mentioned wifi. No joy. FW assures me that the wifi hardware is there. And i believe them, but nothing can see it. I see a “lo” device and that is it. No “wlo” anywhere.

So. I have been using linux system for a while, but for the purposes of this question, assume that i am an idiot. It certainly is how this is making me feel.

Fyi i am trying to boot off a usb stick: “Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS amd64”. I have gotten the system to boot into this, but only with an empty disk.

Any suggedtions would be appreciated.

thanx - ray

2

Use F12 or Fn+F12 depending on if you have Fn toggled or not:

My guess would be that the WIFI antenna actually isn’t turned off but maybe Ubuntu 20.04 is too old to recognize the hardware. Have you tried 24.04 to at least see what normal operation of your WIFI would look like?

3

I have not because getting a newer system onto a thumb drive is another way things can go wrong. Is 20.04 really that old? I guess i was hoping that “LTS” meant more than it does. :–) i will get a newer ubuntu onto another usb drive and see how it goes.

4

Try ventoy if you want a better USB stick. It lets you have multiple ISOs on the same stick and avoid flashing the whole drive every time for every release. It works well, though you might have to disable secureboot.