Setting up ubuntu for home broadband internet

[visionman]

Hi guys I have just installed Ubuntu 20.04 onto my HP Elite 8300 desktop computer. I am about to sign up for home broadband to access the internet. I will be using a T-P LINK Mini wifi adaptor to access the internet in combination with the ISP router,. What do I need to do to get this distro up and running, trouble free access to the internet? Any links to tutorials that address this post welcomed. Ubuntu has very limited software installed from the disc I bought and I am wondering if I need to set this distro up for it to work straight out of the box? I am in the dark with this software Ubuntu 20.04, so any advice, links, welcomed,
all the best
visionman

[sophisticles]

This should help you:

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/stories/detail/323

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1076/

[Hoser Rob]

This should help you:

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/stories/detail/323

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1076/

Actually that 1st link is for Ubuntu 16.04 and you should always use solutions for your point release in Linux.

The 2wnd one involves dl'ing drivers from the mfr's sote AFAIK and, while just dl'ing the newest driver is p[retty much a rteflex action in WIndows, it's not necessarily such a good idea in Linux.

The main thing I'm wondering, though, is why you ask here instead of ubuntuforums.org or askubuntu.com ... they are the best support sites in the Linux world for newbies.

[betwixt]

20.04 connects to just about anything you throw at it. If it detects the Wi-Fi adapter is plugged in, it should connect without any problems.
Open your web browser and type in the address of the router (try tplinkwifi.net or 192.168.0.254 or whatever is marked on the ISP's router), if it opens the router home page you are done.

Brian.

[pandy]

personally (as a Ubuntu user) don't recommend to use Ubuntu (and generally) Linux as a PC desktop OS. Linux i OK for text console and servers but definitely not OK for regular, daily basis desktop usage due common in Linux world habit design thing to be "faulty from beginning".

Depends on kernel version you may face some problems with drivers, usually your hardware is supported out of the box so no need to install separate driver but in same cases you may be interested in installing driver (and/or) hw firmware different than default due newer kernels or special functionality not offered by mainstream Linux driver. You can use guides like this https://www.techbrackets.com/install-missing-firmware-debian/ and this url https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/ (one of the common issue is incorrect firmware installed for quite popular 1GbE Realtek NIC).

If you intent to use Linux as desktop OS prepare to spent lot of time searching of solution for issues you will encounter on a daily basis.

[jan5678]

As a Linux user for years (Mint and Manjaro, Never liked Ubuntu) I can save say that Linux is perfectly fine to use as desktop os.
@pandy what do you mean by "faulty from beginnig"?

If you use "very strange or odd hardware" it might not be supported in the stock kernel, that's true, but if you use standard hardware it is rare if things don't work.

@hoser Rob If a solution is offered for 16.04 it might also work for later versions, but no garanties off course. If the OP do want to try, do so on a different system or different install to test it out first. Genreral rule i learned is that in Linux there are always more than one way to do or fix things. You proberly don't agree with me (we had our collisions in the past here..) but to write off a solution up front because of versions is to much i think.

[pandy]

As a Linux user for years (Mint and Manjaro, Never liked Ubuntu) I can save say that Linux is perfectly fine to use as desktop os.
@pandy what do you mean by "faulty from beginnig"?

Lack of standardization and lack of common efforts deliver highly divided, sometimes contradictory functionality (essential areas like audio, graphics).
From my perspective fact that you are unable to modify how thick is frame around windows (good luck with fighting with very thin sliders gadgets).
I could provide long list of failures, issues, problems (named few of them is lack of decent multimonitor support - your dialogue window may be randomly displayed across different monitors, randomly each time whenever dialogue window is raised, losing focus, loosing keyboard mapping, permanent defects with apparmor, lack of decent package management especially important with adequate group, file ownership and user rights... why i'm forced to use sudo to install gimp and later can't access some gimp aspects as they are owned by root?!? this will be long list).
Of course those things can be workaround but usually never permanently solved... so every time you reboot computer expect unexpected.

If you use "very strange or odd hardware" it might not be supported in the stock kernel, that's true, but if you use standard hardware it is rare if things don't work.

not always imagine - i've switched to newer kernel (from 4.. to 5.1.11) and suddenly get informed about incorrect FW for mainboard chipset - guess what - search how to solve issue, then manually copy proper firmware files (beware of cryptic file names) to folder with correct rights.

@hoser Rob If a solution is offered for 16.04 it might also work for later versions, but no garanties off course. If the OP do want to try, do so on a different system or different install to test it out first. Genreral rule i learned is that in Linux there are always more than one way to do or fix things. You proberly don't agree with me (we had our collisions in the past here..) but to write off a solution up front because of versions is to much i think.

general rule is that in linux sometimes you need to spent time trying to make it work on sometimes so obvious areas that should be resolved at least since decade (like app focus stealing)

[jan5678]

@pandy

not always imagine - i've switched to newer kernel (from 4.. to 5.1.11) and suddenly get informed about incorrect FW for mainboard chipset - guess what - search how to solve issue, then manually copy proper firmware files (beware of cryptic file names) to folder with correct rights.

In this perspective i have to agree, I used to use mint on my fairly recent hardware ( I3 8100 msi b360) but when they began to use kernel 5.0 i did have problems, like usb failures and sounds not working. I eventualy switched to Manjaro and all problems are gone, even with my current kernel 5.7
Maybe give Manjaro a try? Like i said, i don't like Ubuntu at all, Mint was better but not flawless either.

For your other issues, lots of it i don't use like mulit monitor, window frame, apparmor etc.
Installing programs always require root rights, i don't no what aspects you use from gimp that gives a problem? I use it for basic stuff

And yes some thing require user interaction to make it work, like my swap harddisk and epson scanner. but agree i did have a canon laser printer that i (after days of trying) did not get to work.

But long story short Windows is not much better imho, and i did have my share of problems with windows.

[pandy]

@pandy

not always imagine - i've switched to newer kernel (from 4.. to 5.1.11) and suddenly get informed about incorrect FW for mainboard chipset - guess what - search how to solve issue, then manually copy proper firmware files (beware of cryptic file names) to folder with correct rights.

In this perspective i have to agree, I used to use mint on my fairly recent hardware ( I3 8100 msi b360) but when they began to use kernel 5.0 i did have problems, like usb failures and sounds not working. I eventualy switched to Manjaro and all problems are gone, even with my current kernel 5.7
Maybe give Manjaro a try? Like i said, i don't like Ubuntu at all, Mint was better but not flawless either.

For your other issues, lots of it i don't use like mulit monitor, window frame, apparmor etc.
Installing programs always require root rights, i don't no what aspects you use from gimp that gives a problem? I use it for basic stuff

And yes some thing require user interaction to make it work, like my swap harddisk and epson scanner. but agree i did have a canon laser printer that i (after days of trying) did not get to work.

But long story short Windows is not much better imho, and i did have my share of problems with windows.

Yes, i agree, Windows is not a perfect but at least it is consistent and some issues are not present (you can easily modify how your windows should look and feel - valid for pre Windows 10) and there is less annoyances.
Try to install plugins for gimp at later use those plugins without running gimp with sudo - impossible.
Apparmor is active by default in Ubuntu and in fact it impact Ubuntu severely...

I believe issues are not in particular distro but on fundamental things such as architecture of OS itself... it is like Frankenstein - some different puzzles stitched together...

[betwixt]

I have to confess I use Kubuntu rather than Ubuntu and have for many years with no issues. The Kubuntu desktop is far more configurable and in my opinion user friendly than the stock Gnome desktop and you can configure just about everything on the window decorations.

Brian.

[sophisticles]

I have been using Linux since before Fedora existed and you could buy SUSE in Comp USA for $80, it came on a bunch of CD's with a book from what I remember, I remember running dual boots with Win 2k and RedHat+Ximian Gnome, back when it still used LILO, needless to say I have been using Linux for a very long time.

I switched to using Linux as my main desktop OS about 5 years ago, and I have used every major distro for extended periods of time. I also use Win 7 and Win 10 on a daily basis, for work and school and can safely say there are things that Linux does great and things that it does poorly.

If you have an old laptop, chances are you can get it working smoothly with a lightweight Linux distro, like Peppermint or Manjaro XFCE. If you have an HP printer, it's literally plug and play, every distro I have tried has let me just plug in the printer to a USB port and immediately start scanning and printing, no problem. Same goes for Intel cpu's with iGPU's, the Intel open source graphics drivers work great. I would go as far as to say that if you have an Intel cpu/igpu or HP printer and can't get them working with Linux, then you probably will never get them working.

Having said this, there are things that Windows does way better than Linux, like scaling text, scaling/fitting windows and other GUI elements for a given resolution and monitor size, most GUI related things are just better on Windows.

I will say that some DE's, for me at least, are better than others, and I prefer Mate or Cinnamon than other DE's.

My current favorite is MX Linux, as close to the perfect distro as anything I have ever tried.

The links i provided the OP were meant as a guide on where to look to try and get his hardware working. With Ubuntu one should always download the latest ISO, so they get the newest HWE stack, especially with LTS variants which tend to get outdated pretty quickly.