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Windows 10 support "ends" in a few weeks, trying to rig my old HP notebook up to Mint or something just in case it takes down my desktop

Hit a classic problem of the wi-fi adapter not seeing most available networks. Troubleshooting suggested checking to make sure it can handle 5Ghz networks. With some searching I see it has a "dual band" adapter, and set it to prefer 5GHz band... and it still doesn't see my wifi.

I can't mess with the router too much tonight, house is busy with netflix slop.

My question, would a Linux distro be able to take advantage of the 5Ghz band? Assuming Windows is just being unhelpful.

I got it hooked up to ethernet now seeing if updates help. I haven't used this laptop since 2020.

I just want to find a way to make sure the hardware works before I switch the OS.

Windows 10 support "ends" in a few weeks, trying to rig my old HP notebook up to Mint or something just in case it takes down my desktop Hit a classic problem of the wi-fi adapter not seeing most available networks. Troubleshooting suggested checking to make sure it can handle 5Ghz networks. With some searching I see it has a "dual band" adapter, and set it to prefer 5GHz band... and it still doesn't see my wifi. I can't mess with the router too much tonight, house is busy with netflix slop. My question, would a Linux distro be able to take advantage of the 5Ghz band? Assuming Windows is just being unhelpful. I got it hooked up to ethernet now seeing if updates help. I haven't used this laptop since 2020. I just want to find a way to make sure the hardware works before I switch the OS.

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[–] • 2 pts

try Endeavour and learn YAY. Yay makes arch pretty easy for AUR support. its a damn good swiss army knife, but it still does fail occasionally.

[–] • 0 pt

I'm not worried about AUR support, on it's own. YAY and Pamac make it butt-easy to use the AUR. My bigger concern is the general safety of the packages themselves. Lately there's been a major uptick in the bad actors putting sketchy packages in there. in general: the AUR is the least safe way to install stuff just because of the nature of how it's maintained.

[–] • 1 pt

It does make one responsible for verifying the code in the packages they want to install.