Enumerating devices, capabilities and interfaces

CLI way

Linux exposes WiFi devices as "phy" entities. WiFi devices by itself do not offer any connectivity. Linux allows creation of network interfaces (the well-known interfaces which could be found using ip link | perl -ne '/\d+:\s+(\w+):/ && print "$1\n";') assigned to corresponding phy's. These network interfaces are in fact used for wireless communication.

To obtain a list of phy's and corresponding network interfaces use iw dev | egrep -i 'phy|Interface|type'.

This article has been tested on:

Owner name	NIC name	Vendor code	Device code	Comment
@foxpy	Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (rev 1a)	8086	2723	OK
@foxpy	Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2200	8086	0891	OK
@foxpy	ASUSTek Computer, Inc. 802.11ac NIC	0b05	184c	OK
@Sominemo	Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter	10ec	c821	OK