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I'll try to make it as tl;dr as possible

  • I got a brand new Dell XPS 9380 with fresh ubuntu-mate 18.04 from the IT guy in my job.
  • I wasn't sure about mate so I tried different environments with tasksel
  • finally I decided to keep mate and I unchecked the others from tasksel
  • tasksel removed A LOT of dependencies, I ended up without graphical interface
  • I booted from a ubuntu-mate live-usb, mount encrypted partition and chrooted into it, ran tasksel again trying to install what it removed. I got graphical interface again, but NO WIFI.
  • from lspci I can tell that card is: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174

What I've already tried:

  • sudo apt install linux-firmware (up to date)
  • sudo apt install linux-firmware-nonfree (can't find package)
  • copying QCA6174 binaries from /lib/firmware/... from live-usb into my system.

In debian installation you can chose an advanced option to manually go to one of the stages of installation, but I couldn't find that in ubuntu-mate graphical installation.

I don't have a clue of what I'm missing, and I would prefer not to completely reinstall in new partitions, since guys from IT encrypted the disc, installed anti-virus and set domain name, etc.

alete
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  • Please boot the system in text mode and run sudo rfkill unblock all, check that you have ath10k in the output of lsmod | grep -E "80211|ath", also check that you have WPA-supplicant installed - with dpkg -l | grep wpasupplicant . After executing of rfkill unblock you (theoretically) will be able to connect to Wi-Fi. – N0rbert Aug 18 '19 at 20:25
  • thanks @N0rbert no output for lsmod | grep -E "80211|ath" . How should I install it? – alete Aug 18 '19 at 20:40
  • sudo modprobe ath10k_pci output is: FATAL: Module ath10k_pci not found in directory /lib/modules/5.0.0-25-generic – alete Aug 18 '19 at 20:54
  • This means that you have not installed kernel modules for currently running kernel. You need to check its version with uname -r. Then boot from LiveUSB and copy contents of /lib/modules to the system. It may fail if versions mismatch. The chroot-based will be more productive, but it need skills :) You can read about chroot usage in this great answer and adjust it for your needs with installation of linux-image-extra-5.0.0-25-generic and other stuff. – N0rbert Aug 18 '19 at 20:55
  • Thanks! I'll give it a try and come back later. (L) – alete Aug 18 '19 at 20:56

1 Answers1

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It is known that taskel should not be used to remove things.
It is very bad that you have learned this in painful way.

You may try to boot into the current console mode and then setup internet from it with terminal version of Network Manager interface:

nmtui

Or better - obtain somewhere USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter and fix system from it.

If you want to install MATE DE back - use one of these commands:

sudo tasksel install ubuntu-mate-desktop

or

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-mate-desktop^
N0rbert
  • 99,918
  • Yeah, I read about tasksel 'bug' just after removing. Thanks. nmtui shows my saved wifi connections, but it won't let me connect to anything because I don't even have the network interface working. That's my main issue. How do I get my interface back? – alete Aug 18 '19 at 20:18