[FAQ] Wireless not working

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Almost all wireless cards require non-free firmware to work and Debian cannot include this in their official release because it violates their social contract.

See also https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware

To get the wireless device working in the installation phase see the official installation guide:

https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/ ... 04.en.html

Please link to this thread when replying to all firmware-related wireless queries so that it shows up in search engines, thanks.

[cds60601]

Great reference, especially the first link. If a user reads that first, they should determine whether or not they have applicable hardware. That should help a lot of needless installs and questions.

Of course, this assumes they would read these links first

C

[Hallvor]

For the lazy ones: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff ... -firmware/

[sunrat]

In addition to the excellent info above, some wireless devices need to have a driver module built for the kernel. To locate the correct driver for your device, often a search will find someone else has managed to get the same device working by building a driver (eg. from Github) and posted about it on a forum.

To find the right driver first find the device ID with either lsusb for USB devices or lspci for inbuilt.

Example from a recent post:

Code: Select all

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:b812 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

Then do a search for debian 0bda:b812 and check out the links. This one led to a solved thread at
https://forum.peppermintos.com/index.php?topic=6813.0
and subsequently to the driver at
https://github.com/jeremyb31/rtl8822bu

[sickpig]

so u can get it but not easily.. thats much aligned with the theme of linux istnt it?