No WiFi icon Ubuntu Mate 16.04.3

Question

I'm a complete novice and I installed Ubuntu Mate 16.04.3 on my old Sony Vaio VGN-NR21J/S yesterday.

I've never had a wifi icon in my top bar. In fact the only icons that I have in either bar are one's I've added myself so no settings icon either.

I can connect using an ethernet cable and have updated software and drivers but I can't connect via WiFi. I only have an SSID and a password and I've tried using network settings and it requires too much info.

I simply want what I'm used to, an icon to click and a display of WiFi networks. I know this should happen in Ubuntu Mate.

Frustrated. Any help would be much appreciated.

Solution 1

Add the notification area to your panel. You do that by right-clicking on the panel, "Add to Panel..." and choosing Notification Area.

If network icon is still missing, try to restart the network manager with

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo service network-manager start

or simply

sudo service network-manager restart

If that doesn't work, post output of this

lspci -nnk

Solution 2

It is often the simplest things and with no manual simple enough... The notification area was it. I went through them all and saw no hint that this panel was the answer.

Now connected and the learning continues. I love it. This old laptop was too slow to be of use and had been put away for years. Now it works!

Thank you

Peter

Comments

[user68186]

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