I apologize if this seems like a trivial matter, but I have a laptop (a Lenovo Ideapad 3 to be exact) and I can’t get WiFi (or Bluetooth) to work on anything other than Ubuntu 23.04 and its flavors. I tried OpenSUSE Leap and Debian 12, both couldn’t detect the built-in WiFi card. I also tried Ubuntu-based distros such as Linux Mint, KDE Neon, and Zorin OS, same problem. I tried Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and even that couldn’t detect the WiFi card! So for the mean time, I’m stuck with using Ubuntu 23.04. Any ideas to get around this? Can I use Ubuntu to figure the exact WiFi card that’s being used then download its driver? If so, how can I do that exactly? Note that my Laptop doesn’t have a built-in Ethernet port, and I don’t want to buy a USB Ethernet adapter only for it not work out of the box either! Any help would be appreciated!
If you wish to run Ubuntu 22.04 you should be able to upgrade to kernel 6.2 (by default its on 5.14 IIRC).
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/08/ubuntu-22-04-linux-kernel-6-2
I’m not sure if this is known to you; apologies in advance if I’m stating the bleeding obvious: In Linux drivers come with the kernel. There shouldn’t be any reason, except a few exceptions, to install drivers separately to your kernel. So when Linux folks talk about “the kernel”, they mean “the scheduler, core operating system AND all up-to-date drivers”.
So most likely your HW isn’t supported in older kernels.
When I first installed 22.04 LTS for a 12700T-based micro server, several things didn’t work out of the box. After upgrading to 5.19 everything was in working order though.