PROBLEM SOLVED here is how I did it: https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspo...ltek.html#ID10

Hello all, I can not get online with my newly installed Mint 19.1 Yesterday I installed Mint on my old laptop successfully. I did so with a USB stick. I wiped the drive clean of windows 7 and made it a Mint machine. Today I partitioned the hard drive on my desktop for dual boot window 10 and Mint. Both OS's work but the Mint will not connect to either WiFi or Ethernet. I installed Mint on my Lenovo 310S ideacentre desktop with the same USB stick as with my laptop. What should I do now? On the advice of a helping individual I am re-posting this here in hopes that more feedback will be forthcoming.
dc.901 said- <Does the OS (Mint 19) see the Wireless adapter?
Can you open a terminal and type in "sudo lspci -v", review the output and see if you can find wireless adapter>.
I did that and I see both a wireless network adapter and ethernet controller. I have tried to get online using both. Neither worked for me. Now what?

Try looking for a driver for you wireless card and install it.
Once you get the driver installed, reboot.

I just happened to be checking on the drivers when I thought to check email for solutions to my issue. I opened Driver Manager. It says Drivers can not be installed. Connect to the internet or insert the linux mint installation usb stick.
Well, I can't get online and the usb stick does nothing. How do I tell the computer to look for drivers on the USB stick?
I inserted the USB stick and clicked on the driver manager to search for drivers. All it did was try to get online. A window opened that said- Failed to download repository info. In the detail is says Mint etc, does not have release file. I have no idea what that means. Do you? I am about to attempt re-installing Mint. Is that a good idea?

Thank a lot for taking some time to help me. It is much appreciated.

Re-installing Mint probably won't change anything:-

Use the device that you are using to post this post to find the driver for your wifi card.

Run this command and tell me what card you have and I'll try to find the driver for you.

This looks like a double post:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ed-4175650670/

It is network controller realtec rtl8821ce 802.11acpcie Wireless network adapter

I found out that it may not work with LM 19-
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=281231

Here's the driver here:
https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce

Wow. This is way beyond the stuff I usually do on a computer. I am not sure if I am up to it or not. I am willing to give it a try if it's not going to destroy my computer. It's already messed up enough as is.

Just to be sure I know what this is all about- so I can enter data into the terminal window and that will install a driver? I don't need to download a file?

1 members found this post helpful.

Yeah you do need to download the file if you want to install the driver.

Than you will have to unzip the file and than read the "README" file to install the driver.

OR you can try installing Ubuntu and see if the wifi works out of the box with Ubuntu 18.04:-

After downloading the file how do I get it onto Mint? I am downloading to my laptop. I suppose a cd or dvd would work?? I have just one USB stick and it has Mint on it. Can I still write to that USB stick and not mess up the Mint data? I really want to get Mint to work. I have had Ubuntu for a long time on the laptop. I like Mint a lot better.. when it works. It works fine on my laptop.

Just to be clear- I have a Lenovo desktop that I have partitioned the hard drive for dual boot of Win 10 and Mint 19.1 That is the machine that Mint will not work on.

Cheers and thanks for the help

No you won't need a CD or a DVD.

The only way that I know of to carry the driver over to Mint is via a usb stick.

If you don't have another usb stick than you may want to pick one up.

Well I am done for today then.. unless they have USB sticks at Safeway. I'm getting cross eyed and have a headache from staring at screens all day. So thanks for your help.

Caio

You're Welcome-

Since you already have Mint installed you can remove the Mint .iso from the usb stick. Than, you can carry the rtl8821ce driver and it's folder over to your Mint install.

That way you won't have to purchase another usb stick.

Double posting it a no no. I don't know how that happened. I did post in the newbie section at first. I was told to post here for more traffic. That is how it happened. Should I remove a post?