Dell wifi interface not showing after loading module

[Dylanus]

Hi all,

I've just installed Stretch on a new Dell Inspiron 15 7000 and I can't get wifi working. The results from

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ip addr

show no wireless interface.
The output of

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lspci -v

shows

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03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 2526 (rev 29)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 4010
        Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 255
        Memory at a5200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [80] MSI-X: Enable- Count=16 Masked-
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [14c] Latency Tolerance Reporting
        Capabilities: [154] L1 PM Substates

I have enabled non-free software and installed firmware-iwlwifi. I have tried running

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sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi

followed by

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sudo modprobe iwlwifi

several times and rebooting. The output of

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lsmod | grep wifi

shows

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iwlwifi               151552  0
cfg80211              589824  6 ath9k_htc,iwlwifi,mac80211,ath9k,ath,ath9k_common

Atheros drivers are showing up now because I have plugged in a wireless USB device as well, but I have had the same results from that. The modules appear to be loaded, but no wireless interface is present. When I reboot the computer, the modules are unloaded again and I have to reload them before they show up. I assume the OS has decided they are redundant, since they are not driving anything.
All the other posts I've read here and elsewhere suggest that installing the firmware and loading the modules should fix the problem. Is my laptop too new for these drivers? Is there another step I am missing?
I also have this output:

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sudo dmesg | grep -i wireless
[  400.371230] Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux

Please let me know if any other output would be helpful.
Any pointers on how to get this working would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[bw123]

...
Is my laptop too new for these drivers? Is there another step I am missing?
...

Hard to say because you've grepped out all the good stuff. The steps I would do are:
Verify device is supported: https://wiki.debian.org/iwlwifi#supported
Make sure firmware is loaded in dmesg.

If the device is not supported on 4.9 kernel, then you can try backported 4.18 or so and the newere firmware-iwlwifi pkg https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=iwlwifi

https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

[arochester]

Did you reboot?

Is there a hardware switch and is it on?

[stevepusser]

It's an Intel 9260, so you need a newer kernel, newer firmware-iwlwifi, and newer firmware-misc-nonfree at least. You probably also need a newer Mesa to support any Intel 8th generation Coffee Lake graphics. All these are in stretch-backports. Your USB device needs firmware-atheros.

[Dylanus]

The hardware switch does seem to be on, as Windows connects to wifi without a problem.
It sounds like the kernel is probably the issue here. I've been working with Arch and Gentoo for a while, so I got used to getting the latest of everything and compiling it myself if it wasn't there.
I will have a look at backports and see if that fixes the issue. I'll update here if it works.
Thanks very much.

[stevepusser]

The hardware switch does seem to be on, as Windows connects to wifi without a problem.
It sounds like the kernel is probably the issue here. I've been working with Arch and Gentoo for a while, so I got used to getting the latest of everything and compiling it myself if it wasn't there.
I will have a look at backports and see if that fixes the issue. I'll update here if it works.
Thanks very much.

I have an Intel 9560, so know what has to be done. You can also install inxi and run "inxi -Fxz" to report your hardware and how the drivers are working...for my Coffee Lake Laptop:

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System:    Host: mxmsileopard Kernel: 4.18.0-19.3-liquorix-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
           v: 6.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: MX-17.1_x64 Horizon March 14  2018 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Micro-Star product: GP63 Leopard 8RD v: REV:1.0 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Micro-Star model: MS-16P6 v: REV:1.0 serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends 
           v: E16P6IWS.106 date: 04/08/2018 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 42.5 Wh condition: 44.0/53.4 Wh (82%) model: MSI Corp. MS-16P6 
           status: Unknown 
           Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M525 charge: Full 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake 
           rev: A L2 cache: 9216 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 52992 
           Speed: 3009 MHz min/max: 800/2200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3009 2: 2923 3: 2638 
           4: 2933 5: 2698 6: 3224 7: 2332 8: 1846 9: 3327 10: 2681 11: 2452 12: 3069 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Coffeelake 3x8 GT2) 
           v: 4.5 Mesa 18.1.9 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-19.3-liquorix-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9560 [Jefferson Peak] driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 
           bus ID: 00:14.3 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet driver: alx v: kernel 
           port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 544.31 GiB (46.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Micron model: 1100 MTFDDAV256TBN size: 238.47 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 size: 931.51 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 111.56 GiB used: 60.65 GiB (54.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
           ID-2: /home size: 832.35 GiB used: 483.64 GiB (58.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 16.40 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 55.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 347 Uptime: 1d 1h 13m Memory: 15.52 GiB used: 2.59 GiB (16.7%) 
           Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 inxi: 3.0.25 

[Dylanus]

That's good to know. I might run that and post it tonight when I get home.

[stevepusser]

Some searching shows it might have 7th gen Kaby Lake Intel graphics, so a newer Mesa might not be needed.

[Dylanus]

Alright, so I upgraded the kernel. It hasn't fixed the problem, but its response to the drivers was interesting. It does appear to have loaded a module for wifi now.

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lspci -k

now shows:

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03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 2526 (rev 29)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 4010
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi

dmesg seemed to suggest that there was a problem loading the module though, as well as a bunch of others. One of the terms that came up repeatedly was nouveau. I don't know what that is, but I do seem to remember reading about issues with that on Dell with regard to FreeBSD as well. Do I need to remove that, whatever it is?
I still don't have a wireless interface showing up either. I've provided the full text of dmesg: http://paste.debian.net/1053808/
It seems like there's some interesting information in there, but I don't know enough to interpret that. I couldn't find any useful firmware entries searching in stretch-backports. Do you have any idea what's needed to bring the interface up? I have also tried toggling the wifi switch, to no effect.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I couldn't find any useful firmware entries searching in stretch-backports

A new Arch Linux ISO image is due out tomorrow — load that up and copy /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-* to /lib/firmware in your Debian system, that should do it.

If November's image supports your card you could do it now

Or just download the firmware directly from Intel...

[Dylanus]

A new Arch Linux ISO image is due out tomorrow — load that up and copy /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-* to /lib/firmware in your Debian system, that should do it.

If November's image supports your card you could do it now

Or just download the firmware directly from Intel...

Sounds like an unusual solution, but I’ll give it a shot. If I download Intel’s firmware, do I copy it to the same place? Modprobe will pick it up?

[bw123]

Why do it the hard way?

https://packages.debian.org/stretch-bac ... re-iwlwifi

* Intel Wireless 9260 firmware, version 34.ba501b11.0
(iwlwifi-9260-th-b0-jf-b0-34.ucode)
* Intel Wireless 9260 firmware, version 38.c0e03d94.0
(iwlwifi-9260-th-b0-jf-b0-38.ucode)

Do either of these .ucode files match one of the "failed to load..." lines in your dmesg output? Do you have this pkg installed?

[scouser]

I have Dell 7000 series and runs wifi no probs at all. Here is links to drivers just dload and extract and copy ucode file to /lib/firmware and reboot all is good.

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/use ... rs/iwlwifi

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/use ... re_release

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Why do it the hard way?

The Debian firmware packages haven't been updated since August so there may be some files missing by now (perhaps).

[stevepusser]

No, the stretch-backports version of that package should be sufficient. The nouveau warnings are related to your discrete Nvidia card, but you don't have that working yet, save that for later. Right now you're running on Intel graphics. I'd still like to see the inxi output, too.

But wait until you AMD GPU users see all the firmware warnings* the 4.19 kernel will give you!

*Warnings, not errors, so your GPU still will happy unless you've got a Vega model that really needs that firmware that's missing.

[Dylanus]

Here's my inxi output: http://paste.debian.net/1053945/
I have wifi working now. The debian package worked.
There are still a few bugs to fix. Can you tell me based on this output if I need any other drivers installed?
There's a stop job when I reboot that times out after 1:30. It's actually 17 jobs, none of which seem to stop, and it fails and then moves on. It would be nice to make that stop happening.
The wifi also doesn't start automatically. I have to kill wpa_supplicant and start it again. It's working now though, so thank you all very much for your help.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

There's a stop job when I reboot that times out after 1:30. It's actually 17 jobs, none of which seem to stop, and it fails and then moves on. It would be nice to make that stop happening.

You can reduce the timeout by setting DefaultTimeoutStopSec= in /etc/systemd/system.conf

Make the journal persistent by creating /var/log/journal, reboot then check the logs:

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journalctl -b -1 -r

^ That shows the log from the last boot in reverse order, the user needs to be in the systemd-journal group (or root) to read the logs.

The wifi also doesn't start automatically. I have to kill wpa_supplicant and start it again.

How exactly are you killing and restarting wpa_supplicant?

Are any units failing at boot?

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systemctl --failed --no-p

[Dylanus]

The stop job issue hasn't happened again. It does still show a failed message for some login thing, but it doesn't wait.
I tried pasting journal output, but the URL I got back was just paste.debian.net. It only does that for this file and I can't figure out why. Is there a tool I can use aside from pastebinit? Debian doesn't seem to have wgetpaste.
A glance through seems to show that most of the issues are to do with the Nvidia driver. Is there a .deb package for that?
The only failed result from systemctl is loading encrypted swap, which shows up in the output when I'm booting as well. Weird, because /proc/swaps shows that a swap partition is in use. Not sure why it thinks there's a problem.
When I boot, wifi is not connected. I have to run

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sudo killall wpa_supplicant

followed by

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sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp3s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf; sudo dhcpcd

. Somehow when it initialises wpa_supplicant it does it wrong. I can probably solve that problem on my own. The driver issue is more challenging. I'll see if I can find another way to paste the journal output tomorrow so you can see what errors I'm getting.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Is there a tool I can use aside from pastebinit?

https://packages.debian.org/stretch/pnopaste-cli

[Dylanus]

How does that tool work? I installed it, but I can't figure out what command to run it with.