I was issued a CORE+ 10.1 Ultra Portable PC (basically, a tablet with an attachable keyboard; model W1001PB46FD, similar to this one https://beantech.net/product/core-10-1-windows-10-detachable-pc/) at work. It worked fine under MS Windows 10, including the WiFi connection. The machine has no Ethernet connector.
Since I did not fancy learning all those Windows, I installed Lubuntu 19.04 there. The system installed fine, but could not see the (WiFi) network card. Commands such as "lspci", "lspci -vnn", "sudo lshw", "sudo lshw -C network", "lsusb" did not show any network cards whatsoever. (E.g. lspci would list a Host bridge, VGA compatible controller, Multimedia controller, Signal processing controller, USB controller, Encryption controller, and ISA bridge, but no Network controller or anything similar).
To provide better support for third-party network controllers, I also installed the package bcmwl-kernel-source (ver 6.30.223.271+bdcom-0ubuntu4) and the prerequisite package dkms. (Of course, without an internet connection you can't run apt-get, but I simply downloaded appropriate versions of the *.deb files for those packages to a USB drive on a different machine, and then successfully installed the files on my CORE+ 10.1 tablet from the USB drive using the QApt Package Installer). "dpkg -l" showed these packages as installed. After installing them, I rebooted; but sill, no WiFi, and the commands such as lspci and lshw don't see the network cards.
Is there anything else I can do at this point to get my tablet's WiFi card visible and working? This company, Beantech, is apparently pretty small, so I don't see much information about their hardware on the internet, so I can't even look up the brand and model name of the network card their tablets use.
As far as I can see, there is no external switch which could have turned the WiFi card off, so that's not a likely reason for the problem.
P.S.1 As per the request of user chili555, this is what "
dmesg | grep -i sdio" produces:
[ 4.343827] mmc1: new ultra high speed DDR50 SDIO card at address 0001
[ 9.460106] Bluetooth: Generic Bluetooth SDIO driver ver 0.1
[ 67.461532] Modules linked in: bnep nls_iso8859_1 snd_soc_sst_cht_bsw_rt5645 joydev gpio_keys intel_rapl intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel punit_atom_debug crct10dif_pclmul crc32_pclmul ghash_clmulni_intel aesni_intel aes_x86_64 snd_intel_sst_acpi crypto_simd snd_intel_sst_core cryptd glue_helper intel_cstate input_leds snd_soc_sst_atom_hifi2_platform snd_soc_rt5645 snd_soc_acpi_intel_match axp20x_pek snd_soc_rl6231 axp288_adc snd_soc_acpi axp288_charger axp288_fuel_gauge extcon_axp288 snd_soc_core snd_hdmi_lpe_audio snd_compress ac97_bus snd_pcm_dmaengine snd_seq_midi btsdio snd_seq_midi_event snd_pcm snd_rawmidi mei_txe intel_xhci_usb_role_switch roles intel_atomisp2_pm mei processor_thermal_device intel_soc_dts_iosf hci_uart snd_seq btqca btrtl bmc150_accel_i2c bmc150_accel_core btbcm snd_seq_device btintel dw_dmac snd_timer mac_hid industrialio_triggered_buffer dw_dmac_core intel_hid bluetooth kfifo_buf intel_cht_int33fe sparse_keymap industrialio goodix snd ecdh_generic soundcore
[ 67.465846] Modules linked in: bnep nls_iso8859_1 snd_soc_sst_cht_bsw_rt5645 joydev gpio_keys intel_rapl intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel punit_atom_debug crct10dif_pclmul crc32_pclmul ghash_clmulni_intel aesni_intel aes_x86_64 snd_intel_sst_acpi crypto_simd snd_intel_sst_core cryptd glue_helper intel_cstate input_leds snd_soc_sst_atom_hifi2_platform snd_soc_rt5645 snd_soc_acpi_intel_match axp20x_pek snd_soc_rl6231 axp288_adc snd_soc_acpi axp288_charger axp288_fuel_gauge extcon_axp288 snd_soc_core snd_hdmi_lpe_audio snd_compress ac97_bus snd_pcm_dmaengine snd_seq_midi btsdio snd_seq_midi_event snd_pcm snd_rawmidi mei_txe intel_xhci_usb_role_switch roles intel_atomisp2_pm mei processor_thermal_device intel_soc_dts_iosf hci_uart snd_seq btqca btrtl bmc150_accel_i2c bmc150_accel_core btbcm snd_seq_device btintel dw_dmac snd_timer mac_hid industrialio_triggered_buffer dw_dmac_core intel_hid bluetooth kfifo_buf intel_cht_int33fe sparse_keymap industrialio goodix snd ecdh_generic soundcore
So it mentions ultra high speed DDR50 SDIO card, and Generic Bluetooth SDIO driver ver 0.1, and module btsdio.
Interestingly, the manual for the tablet never ever mentioned the Bluetooth.
(Incidentally, if there is a solution whereby the tablet could get internet access by means of talking with Bluetooth to another laptop or a smartphone which has its own WiFi, that can work too, even though obviously less practical. Same goes for connecting to a smartphone with a USB cable.)
P.S.2 Adding info as per requests:
$ ls /sys/bus/sdio/
devices drivers drivers_autoprobe drivers_probe uevent
$ ls /sys/bus/sdio/devices/
mmc1:0001:1 mmc1:0001:2 mmc1:0001:3
$ ls -l /sys/bus/sdio/devices/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 28 17:00 mmc1:0001:1 -> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/80860F14:01/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 28 17:00 mmc1:0001:2 -> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/80860F14:01/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 28 17:00 mmc1:0001:3 -> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/80860F14:01/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:3
$ ls -l /sys/bus/sdio/drivers
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 28 17:00 btsdio
$ ls -l /sys/bus/sdio/drivers/btsdio/
total 0
--w------- 1 root root 4096 Jun 28 17:03 bind
--w------- 1 root root 4096 Jun 28 17:00 uevent
--w------- 1 root root 4096 Jun 28 17:03 unbind
And for lsusb:
$lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 090c:1000 Silicon Motion, Inc. - Taiwan (formerly Feiya Technology Corp.) Flash Drive
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 258a:6a88
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
The output of "lsusb -v" is naturally, verbose, and to save space I won't quote it here unless asked. But for the mysterious Bus 001 Device 004 it said it's a keyboard:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 258a:6a88
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 1.10
… … …
iManufacturer 1 SINO WEALTH
iProduct 2 USB KEYBOARD
… … …
P.S.3 More dmesg messages:
dmesg | grep firm
[ 0.498620] acpi PNP0A08:00: [Firmware Info]: MMCONFIG for domain 0000 [bus 00-3f] only partially covers this bridge
P.S.4 "rfkill" (or "rfkill list") lists nothing. If I start "bluetoothctl" and run the "list" command, nothing is listed either.
P.S.5 Interestingly, the manufacturer posted a document on its site with some advise for the users MS Windows users afflicted by a WiFi trouble on these PCs:
https://beantech.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Core-10.1-No-Wi-Fi-8A.122617.3-Solution-Procedure.pdf
("Windows 10 Update results in no Wifi – Click Here for Fix Procedure").
In this document, they tell that the model I have (W1001PB46FD) is a Dual Band Wi Fi Model, and the WiFi card in it is, apparently a "Broadcom 802.11abgn Wireless SDIO Adapter", whatever it means. (I don't know if it's a generic description, or can in fact identify the exact model number). They then outline a process whereby MS Windows users can find the appropriate driver on their computer and apply it.
I guess their advice is not terribly useful for me, since even if I still had access to the MS Windows driver file, it probably is not in the same format as what Ubuntu needs.
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