I just realised that I've been experiencing a lot of stress and frustration over the last couple of months. I also realised that these feelings of dread and existential anxiety stem from my heavy use of Ubuntu. So I ended another agonizing 3 hours of trying-to-get-internet-access-again-so-I-can-get-some-fucking-work-done and managed to blow off some steam without causing too much property damage. Then I sat down and thought about it. And you know what? I hate Ubuntu.

With Window$ I can at least get some work done without having to write my own network drivers because the current ones do not function when the day of month is a prime number or some shit.

Honestly if I were in that situation I'd just go and get a wifi stick with official Linux support. Or try out a distro with a newer kernel. I don't have the patience for wifi issues.

I would recomend a mac. This sht breaks less often than any other OS. Not that I love mac products, but the stable, very easy to use OS is great to get some work done.

Helps when your computer isn't a PoS.

Been using ubuntu 18 since it got released. I'm never going back!

@D--M Reported for trash-talking my computer! If your comment qualifies as racism you're in BIG TROUBLE.

@carlosjpc Cool. I'm kinda excited to try Mac, it's been on my mind for a while now.

@deadlyRants WiFi is actually more reliable than Ethernet, even though it's degraded to the point where I'm frustrated enough to try and fix the wired connection. The worst part is just how sporadic it is. Ethernet works great for a couple of days and then BAM, can't connect. It's always localized to the Ubuntu installation. How is that even possible? I hate not being able to reproduce the problem. It's like some kind of time bomb or whatever, I can't wrap my head around it! Good thing is that my last couple of rage-fuelled Google searches led me to this site, neat place.

If Windows works for you, I mean by all means go for it.. but Ubuntu is known for shipping old kernels (and thus old drivers).. Manjaro may have more recent drivers, as the kernel of that is more often than not released at around the same pace as Arch's (i.e. upstream tags new release, maintainers compile and push to the repositories in a matter of hours) and they've both got the big vat of unofficial code called the AUR.. often times there's some good userspace/dkms stuff in there as well. That's how I got my Broadcom card working.

@Condor Hey, thanks for the advice. That actually sounds pretty good, I'll look into it ✌️

@ihatecomputers In the end the best thing is looking for Linux compatibility when buying the next device. This gets rid of almost all issues.

Aside from that I agree with the suggestion of a newer kernel. Manjaro doesn't like me but a lot of people had good experiences with it, and if Manjaro/Antergos/Arch don't get your wifi running, nothing will except Windows.

UPDATE

It's fixed, I think! Both wifi and Ethernet has been stable for a couple of days thanks to rmmod && modprobe as suggested in https://askubuntu.com/a/893823/....

Finally! Couldn't for the life of me figure out why I could have stable internet access one day and then not get it working at all the next. It seemed linked to the periodic Ubuntu software updates, even though no network drivers were updated. Then I had an idea that it might be related to something something suspend (it came to me in a shamanic vision) which led me to that askubuntu thread. Idk man, it's so good to finally leave this stuff behind me.

Might try elementary OS soon, expect a new frustrated rant from someone who can't use Google to solve simple driver issues 😅

Also... I'm kinda afraid to admit this, but now that this is solved I sort of feel like I want to learn how things actually work "under the hood"... Yikes.

Update2

WiFi and Ethernet dead again when logging in. Had an Ubuntu update waiting for me. rmmod && modprobe fixed it again. Guess this is my life now.

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UPDATE 3

Same problem resurfaced, but rmmod/modprobe fix stopped working. What the actual fuck? It worked for a week... No hardware changes, no nothing.

Fuck. This.

4TH AND FINAL UPDATE (???)

Starts working when I unplug the power and let it have a small nap (couple of seconds). I've had a flawless internet connection for the last couple of days without having to do anything.

May we never speak of this again?

@Nanos Oh man, I don't want to jinx it but it has been working fine ever since the last update. Bluetooth headphones stopped working a bit but I found that if I play around with Blueman for a couple of minutes it usually resolves.

@Nanos Yeah I dual boot and it always worked on the other OS, no exceptions.

Dunno about the router, but I couldn't find any correlation between days with no Ethernet and really crappy WiFi and usage. It could stop working when I wasn't downloading anything, or even directly on boot. Was getting ready to sample logs over a long period of time and get some help on the forums but it seems good now.