Haines Brown via Dng said on Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:33:42 -0500

>On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 09:50:48PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
>> Haines Brown via Dng said on Wed, 18 Feb 2026 07:48:29 -0500
>>
>>

>> >I normally do a netinst installation while connected wirelessly.   
>>                                                       ^^^^^^^^^^

>>
>> Right there you're making your job harder. In this day and age most
>> Ethernet RJ45 cable connections *just work*. On the other hand, wifi
>> is one of the roughest edges of Linux hardware/driver compatibility.
>>
>
>Understood. I only meant that I usually a onstall wirelessly
>without problem. Further, by wife (she who must be obeyed)
>objects to triping over an Ethernet cable strung across room.

For the few hours it takes to do an install? Do it when she's out for a
few hours, or find a way to *temporarily* run the Ethernet cable
airborn. String it over a chandelier or something. That's what I used
to do. My wife didn't like the aesthetics, but she sure likes having a
24/7 on-call IT guy to lean on.

>
>> There's a thing called a "Travel Router". Everyone should have one.
>> When properly configured (perhaps with another computer), it enables
>> you to install without a working wifi adapter on your computer, even
>> if your Internet provider neglected to give you an Ethernet cable
>> connection and gave you only wifi.
>
>Ineresging. Is this what Amzon calls a mobile router. If so it needs
>to have access to an access point, and so unless one's compter were
>a laptop. that would not be useful.

You have an access point. If you didn't have an access point, you
wouldn't be able to use your wifi at all. Please be sure you
understand the meaning of "access point".

Your next steps are to, with a working computer, set up the Travel
Router to receive info from the access point. Memorize the steps you
took to do that, because you'll need to do it again from the install
media you boot up to. So be sure to write down *all* the steps,
including access point name and password and the encryption method.
Once you can do that, you can remove your wifi from your list of
complications and get on with troubleshooting your install.

As far as the Travel Router it only being useful for laptops, that's
just not true. Any computer that can accept input from a wired Ethernet
can use the Travel Router. Needless to say, you'll need to read the
specifications to make sure it can be used to receive Wifi and send via
wired Ethernet.

Another suggestion. AI is free today, and you don't need to sign up for
anything. Write an *explicit, clear* question on Google, and Google
quickly brings up a detailed answer. What this does for you is:

1. Cuts the turnaround time for each of your questions by a factor of
ten.

2. Gets you in the habit of framing your questions so that they will be
answered accurately. You'll need to spell check your questions,
because when you're dealing with humans, accurate spelling is a sign
of respect for their time and energy, but when you're dealing with
AI, it's the key to getting the right answer instead of a
hallucination (the habit of AI machines to just throw out any answer
when they don't know the accurate answer).

When using AI, the document I recommended, "How To Ask
Questions The Smart Way" at
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html is absolutely
crucial. You *have* read it, right?

SteveT

Steve Litt

http://444domains.com