Hi,

Again ignoring your more non-constructive complaints…

TL;DR: Try USB networking like by plugging in your phone or a USB
ethernet/wifi dongle.

On Sat, Nov 25, 2023 at 07:39:20PM +0000, Richard Smith wrote:
> The only place I found that had the driver required me to install
> more content from online (which I can't access, due to the laptop
> not having an Ethernet port, as well as no wireless).

It is not unusual for computers (especially laptops) with newer
hardware to not have needed drivers contained in the distro kernel.
It's worth thinking about how you will handle that before you buy
it.

One valid strategy for handling that is, "I will consider just using
Ubuntu, or Fedora, or whatever, and only buy hardware that works in
those distributions."

Assuming you want to continue with a distribution that doesn't
ship a kernel that supports your wifi, and you need to get files
onto the computer, you will have to get a bit more creative.

As mentioned in the other thread, I have a laptop that has such a
wifi card. I solved the problem of no initial networking by plugging
a USB cable from my phone to the laptop. NetworkManager then offered
to use it as a USB network connection without me having to configure
anything at all. It was a one click temporary solution to getting
the wifi driver DKMS and everything needed to compile it.

Other possibilities off the top of my head:

- USB ethernet dongle

- USB wifi dongle with a supported chipset

- File transfer by USB

I'm sure you and others can think of more.

> I am spending WAY too much time installing this - with very little
> to show for it!

Don't use it then. Non-actionable complaints are difficult to
address in a volunteer project and it's totally fine for you to use
something else. There are certainly things I do not use Debian (or
Linux in general) for that while they would be technically possible,
are just "way too much time" for me to consider worth it. The answer
isn't for me to drop my complaints at Linux's door.

Thanks,
Andy

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