Booting problem with relation to WiFi after installation

[shaind]

Hello,

I am new to GNU/Linux and just installed Debian on a laptop.(Debian 10.2 AMD64 nonfree version, DVD iso file written on USB pendrive using rufus)
The laptop(HP PROBOOK 445R G6) has a Realtek RTL8822BE WiFi/BT card.

During installation, it failed to configure network. I went on with wired LAN anyway and completed installation. But after I removed the pendrive and rebooted the system, the Booting process halted with error messages saying

"r8822be : halmac_init_hal failed"

I searched the internet and found that this WiFi card has many problems on linux systems with the same error messages, but in my case, the system won't boot and I am unable to log on to the system. I tried again with the card removed (by setting the card to disabled state in BIOS) but the system still stops during boot (in this case, no error message and only a blank black screen with cursor blinking).

Is there a solution for this problem?

Can I re-install Debian with wifi card removed first and install wifi driver afterwards?

[Dai_trying]

Blank screen with blinking cursor is usually indicative of a graphics issue, I would switch to tty1 (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and log in to your system, edit your sources.list to include non-free and then run apt update, then you can install firmware-amd-graphics. This should allow you to boot into the system and then you should be able to figure out the WiFi issue.

[shaind]

Blank screen with blinking cursor is usually indicative of a graphics issue, I would switch to tty1 (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and log in to your system, edit your sources.list to include non-free and then run apt update, then you can install firmware-amd-graphics. This should allow you to boot into the system and then you should be able to figure out the WiFi issue.

Thank you for your suggestion, but in my case, the system does not respond to Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+Fn+F1.

What else can I do to install AMD Graphics driver?

[Dai_trying]

You could use a LiveCd and boot into a live session and then create a chroot environment where you can configure the system, but I am not sure you could install anything without an internet connection.

I have a short guide on chrooting into an OS which is aimed at users wanting to re-instal grub after some failure but you should be able to install packages (if you have internet connection) by copying /etc/resolve.conf from live session to chroot environment before using the sudo chroot command. If you need more specific instruction first make sure you can get a live-session with internet connection on that machine using a LiveCd (try MXLinux as it is probably easiest), and I can give exact instructions that should work.

Also you could check if the package firmware-realtek is installed as that is the firmware your WiFi card should need.

Obviously this might seem a little daunting to a new user, so if that is the case here you could first try a fresh install after removing your wifi device to see if that works as it would be easier.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Add systemd.unit=multi-user.target as a kernel command line parameter to boot to a console.

@Dai_trying: buster now has the arch-install-scripts pakage that provides the arch-chroot(1) command, this will mount the API filesystems and copy over /etc/resolv.conf automatically before chrooting.

And the Debian ISO images have a "rescue mode" in the Advanced Options GRUB sub-menu that can open a shell in an installed system that cannot be booted normally: https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/ ... 06.en.html

[stevepusser]

If it's a really new laptop and the standard MX Linux 19 also has trouble getting to a GUI in a Live Session, I have a respin here with a 5.3 kernel (pretty much the same as in buster-backports), plus Mesa 19.2.1 and a backported amdgpu driver (not in backports the last time I looked): https://archive.org/details/mx19x64updated

There's also a chance that the newer kernel and firmware might just support your wi-fi card out of the box...

[Dai_trying]

@Dai_trying: buster now has the arch-install-scripts pakage that provides the arch-chroot(1) command, this will mount the API filesystems and copy over /etc/resolv.conf automatically before chrooting.

That sounds great, I will look into it now thank you

[shaind]

I finally got my laptop to boot into GUI. Here's what I did.

I first installed Windows on a separate partition and downloaded amdgpu 19.30 from AMD website.
During boot I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F2 and surprisingly, it worked(unlike tty1) and let me log into the command line.
(I first tried to boot with debian rescue mode from GRUB menu, only to find out that the rescue mode does not contain NTFS driver and cannot mount the partition that I downloaded the package file.)
Then I installed the amdgpu package with amdgpu-install script (as mentioned in https://amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) with some dependency problems which I fixed with apt-get -f install (I was connected via wired LAN).

After reboot the GUI worked fine. (The WiFi didn't - It did not show me any of my home SSIDs.)

Now I'm struggling to fix the WiFi problem...

Thank you all for your advice.

[Dai_trying]

Check you have firmware-realtek installed which should supply the firmware required for your WiFi device, you may need to reboot (or log-out and back in) to allow the firmware to be detected.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Then I installed the amdgpu package with amdgpu-install script (as mentioned in https://amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) with some dependency problems which I fixed with apt-get -f install (I was connected via wired LAN).

^ This is a really bad idea, Debian already includes the open source amdgpu driver (which performs better than the proprietary version you have installed) and all you needed to do was install the non-free firmware for the card.

See also viewtopic.php?f=16&t=142974

[bebyx]

I experienced the same issue with my new laptop Thinkpad E595. I just needed to upgrade it to Debian/testing and GUI started working.

Wifi didn't work. I installed a driver from here (mine is rtl8822be) and reinstalled firmware-realtek and firmware-linux-nonfree. After restarting the system, wifi option showed up in Gnome and everything connects just fine.

Actually not sure, if rtlwifi_new driver is needed. Probably I just needed to reinstall firmware for the new 5 kernel. So you could go from there and add rtlwifi_new if firmware reinstalling is not enough.