Unable to connect to wifi using Mobile Hotspot. Network Status: Disabled. Wifi Card: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 [Rainbow Peak] OS: Ubuntu 20.04

I used to connect to internet via mobile hotspot wifi using the broadcom mini wifi card (**BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n). It suddenly stopped working one day (not sure why), when I was troubleshooting some OS Issue. I tried all the below mentioned steps & re-seating the wifi card but in vain.

So, I replaced it with an Intel wifi card: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 [Rainbow Peak] (..what’s Rainbow Peak – a version indicator, product sub-type, or…?). I also re-installed Ubuntu. But I still am unable to connect to wifi via using my Mobile hotspot connection (I don’t have a separate router).

Under the System Settings,

• There are no Visible Networks
  

• No Known Wi-Fi Networks.

  

• and, Nothing happens when I click on Connect to Hidden Network.

Below are my system details:

• Laptop: Dell XPS-15Z L511Z
• OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), 64-bit
• Kernel: Ubuntu 5.4.0-40-generic
• GNOME Version: 3.36.3
• Windowing System: X11
• Wifi (mini) Card: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 [Rainbow Peak]

I have also listed below, the configuration related to Network & the log messages – that are mentioned as required, on some of the websites that I visited looking for a solution.

Network config and log info

Now, I have the below questions:

1. How can I make this work (obviously!)?

2. lshw -C Network returns

   <pre>$ sudo lshw -C Network
     *-network DISABLED        
          description: Wireless interface
          product: Centrino Advanced-N 6230 [Rainbow Peak]
          ...
          ...
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=5.4.0-40-generic firmware=18.168.6.1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 </pre>
   

   But, under Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers section there is no driver listed for the Network wifi card.

   

   Is it only because the driver is a generic driver? Can (or, not) the network card work with only a generic wifi driver? If it can, how to enable it? If not, will it work once I install the particular driver?

3. Similarly, the same command lists a firmware version
   firmware=18.168.6.1. But, there is no firmware folder for the intel card 6230, when I run

   $ ls -l /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6230* ls: cannot access
   '/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6230*': No such file or directory

   However, according to the below intel site, iwlwifi-6000g2b-ucode-18.168.6.1.tgz is the correct (or, compatible) firmware for the device Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6230 (which happens to be mine).

Linux* Support for Intel® Wireless Adapters

And, the same is already present in my system.

<pre>$ ls -la /lib/firmware/ | grep 6000
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  454608 Jun 17 18:06 iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  444128 Jun 17 18:06 iwlwifi-6000g2a-5.ucode
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  677296 Jun 17 18:06 iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  679436 Jul 14 00:36 iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode</pre>

This means the required firmware is installed in my system. So, do I need to install any other driver apart from this?

I found the link below that says the driver given in it supports **Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230** card, but I don’t know how to follow the steps, as the existing config seem to be of different format than the one’s suggested there.

Partial extract of my OS’s config file (just the part which I thought would be relevant).

[Partial extract of the OS Config file][6]

Finally, if you know a working driver for this wifi card (both for Ubuntu and Windows 10), please suggest. Intel seems to have discontinued the support for this card.

See: Customer Support Options for Discontinued Intel® Wireless Products

Edit on 22-07-2020:

I came across a script to get the complete wireless info, given in one of StackOverflow answers.

Link: My wireless/WiFi connection does not work. What information is needed to diagnose the issue?

Adding the output here, in case I missed any info earlier.

wireless-info.txt

Note: I see that some of you have visited the question. If you had/have the same/similar issue & tried something which did/didn’t work or you have something to try in your mind, please share it here. It might lead to a discussion & eventually a solution, who knows. At the least, we will know that it won’t work, for a particular config. 🙂