eldavi , 4 hours ago

It’s not a laptop; it’s a mini desktop that I obtained to serve as a wifi router; storage server; firewall; VPN; media server; remote file storage; and my cat’s favorite warm napping surface.

the wifi nic is embedded on the motherboard and it was chosen since it included a high gain antenna; among other qualities.

Wifi works fine if you use it in ordinary client mode w full Linux support and the hardware is capable of fully supporting ap mode in older Linux kernels; it’s just that Intel decided remove higher speed ap mode support in the latest versions of the driver to force people to buy thier more expensive wifi nics.