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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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[–] • 1 pt

Mint will MOST LIKELY be the most compatable distro. Fedora is also very user friendly out of the box. Arch will be the one you will be able to brute force, but has the "hard" sterotype for a reason. Plus you'll probably have to get drivers from the AUR, so use at your own risk

[–] • 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.