Ubuntu – How to update Ralink 5390 adapter driver via terminal

14.04driversupdates

I need to update my Ralink 5390 adapter driver and I don't know what the terminal command is. I've searched all over the net for it and I have found nothing. My wifi driver needs to be updated badly so I would like to update that first. It is a Ralink 5390 adapter on a Compaq Presario CQ57 Laptop. Any help is appreciated, Thanks. I am currently running Ubuntu 14.04

Best Answer

In Linux, most drivers (the ones that are open source) come with the kernel; so the packages that contains the driver are linux-image-generic and (possibly) linux-firmware (1).

You can check if it is up-to-date with 

apt-cache policy linux-image-generic 
apt-cache policy linux-firmware

and updates should be automatic --- if not, the classical old sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade should work.

Notice that sometime there is a problem in upgrades that makes that the old kernel is retained; in that case use

apt-get install linux-generic

to update the kernel/firmware to the last available for your distribution.

If the device has a not open-source or a driver which is not in the official kernel, things are different, and are very device-dependent.

Footnotes:

(1) normal kernels. change -generic with -rt or -lowlatency if you have some fancy (audio workstation, real time) configuration.

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