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  • Bug#1109988: debian-installer: installer fails to ask for info to authe

    From Jonathan Kamens@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 27 20:10:02 2025
    XPost: linux.debian.maint.boot

    Source: debian-installer
    Version: 20250701
    Severity: normal

    I recently installed Debian Trixie on a brand new computer I built out
    myself. Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, MSI Pro B60M A WF motherboard.

    The installer told me that it needed additional firmware files to be
    able to use my WiFi adapter:

    Some of your hardware needs non-free firmware files to operate. The
    firmware can be loaded from removable media, such as a USB stick or
    floppy.

    The missing firmware files are: iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode

    If you have such media available now, inset it, and continue.

    Load missing firmware from removable media?

    I found that file online, put it on a thumb drive with VFAT
    formatting, stuck it in a USB port, and replied yes to the above
    prompt. The installer proceeded without prompting me again for the
    firmware, so I assume that it found the needed file on the thumb drive
    and loaded the firmware successfully.

    However, after that, _it did not prompt me for which WiFi network to
    use or for the password for that network_. It just went into
    "Detecting Link", which failed, then asked me which interface it
    should use as the primary. I told it to use the WiFi interface, which
    it again tried unsuccessfully to detect link on (since it never
    prompted me for the WiFi network info!), then tried to use DHCP to
    connect which also failed, then told me that it couldn't connect to
    the network and offered to let me proceed with the install without a
    network connection.

    Note that when I boot from a Debian Trixie live image straight into
    GNOME running from the thumb drive, I _am_ able to connect to the WiFi
    network by opening the GNOME menu from the top right corner of the
    screen and clicking on WiFi. So Trixie _is_ capable of connecting to
    my WiFi using the controller in my new computer; it's just that the
    installer isn't.

    (Note, the above occurred with both the graphical and text installer.)

    -- System Information:
    Debian Release: 13.0
    APT prefers testing-security
    APT policy: (500, 'testing-security'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
    Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

    Kernel: Linux 6.12.38+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/20 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
    Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
    Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
    Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
    Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
    LSM: AppArmor: enabled

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  • From Pascal Hambourg@21:1/5 to Jonathan Kamens on Sun Jul 27 20:40:01 2025
    XPost: linux.debian.maint.boot

    On 27/07/2025 at 20:07, Jonathan Kamens wrote:

    However, after that, _it did not prompt me for which WiFi network to
    use or for the password for that network_. It just went into
    "Detecting Link", which failed
    (...)
    Note that when I boot from a Debian Trixie live image straight into
    GNOME running from the thumb drive, I _am_ able to connect to the WiFi network by opening the GNOME menu from the top right corner of the
    screen and clicking on WiFi. So Trixie _is_ capable of connecting to
    my WiFi using the controller in my new computer;

    Without installing the firmware file you mentioned above ? It is not
    present in the firmware-iwlwifi package, so it should not be present in
    the live image either.

    it's just that the installer isn't.

    This may be a duplicate of bugs #1095302 and #1103993 (netcfg does not
    support Wi-Fi 7 devices).

    What is the wireless controller model ?
    Can you do a quick test in the live system ?
    Run the command "/sbin/iwconfig" and check if it reports wireless
    extensions on the wireless interface wl*. You need to install the
    package wireless-tools if the command is missing.

    (Note, the above occurred with both the graphical and text installer.)

    The internal logic is the same, only the interface differs.

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  • From Pascal Hambourg@21:1/5 to Jonathan Kamens on Sun Jul 27 22:20:01 2025
    XPost: linux.debian.maint.boot

    On 27/07/2025 at 20:44, Jonathan Kamens wrote:

    Correct, the Debian live thumb drive never prompts for for the firmware
    file and still successfully connects to the WiFi.

    Can you check kernel logs with `sudo dmesg|less` and look for lines
    about firmware and (iwlwifi or the wireless device bus ID) ?

    Run the command "/sbin/iwconfig" and check if it reports wireless
    extensions on the wireless interface wl*.

    It reports "no wireless extensions" for the wlp131s0f0 device.

    This explains why the installer does not identify it as a wireless
    device. Both iwconfig and netcfg use the legacy wireless extensions API
    (wext) but it seems that Wi-Fi 7 devices can only be used via the newer
    nl80211 API (used by iw and NetworkManager), not via the wext API.
    Adding nl80211 support to netcfg will probably be a post-trixie goal.

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  • From Lennart Sorensen@21:1/5 to Jonathan Kamens on Mon Jul 28 01:50:02 2025
    XPost: linux.debian.maint.boot

    On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 04:16:49PM -0400, Jonathan Kamens wrote:
    2025-07-26T19:49:56.970177-04:00 jik7 kernel: iwlwifi 0000:83:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz

    Well that definitely confirms the Wifi 7 part.

    --
    Len Sorensen

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