Getting WiFi Going on New Laptop - SOLVED

[Martin109]

Having got Debian 11 going on this refurbished Dell latitude 7390, the ethernet connection is all OK, but I can't get the wifi going.

The command lspci yields:

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Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8265 / 8275

but the command ip link show tells me it's only seeing the loopback and the ethernet connection:

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1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp0s31f6: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e4:b9:7a:00:36:f7 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

What do I do next?

[rafletcher]

Slide the wifi switch to "on"?

[pcolbeck]

what does "iwconfig" output ?

[pcolbeck]

Oh I just checked and Debian 11 doesnt install non free WiFi card drivers by default.

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sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi
Should install the Intel ones so long as you enable the non free repository.

[Martin109]

Slide the wifi switch to "on"?

There is no 'on' switch to slide.

[Kim]

Slide the wifi switch to "on"?

There is no 'on' switch to slide.

Always worth checking though, given the sheer number of person-hours that have been cumulatively wasted banging heads against mysterious 'driver problems' when it turns out that a largely forgotten switch had been inadvertently frobbed.  (DAHIKT)

[Martin109]

Oh I just checked and Debian 11 doesnt install non free WiFi card drivers by default.

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sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi
Should install the Intel ones so long as you enable the non free repository.

Tried iwconfig first - Command Not Found

Successfully made changes to sources.list and installed firmware.

iwconfig still Command Not Found

[Martin109]

Restart obviously done too.

[Kim]

Tried iwconfig first - Command Not Found

Are you running it as root (sudo iwconfig), and is the wireless-tools package installed?

[Martin109]

Tried both as root and user.

I'll have a look at installing wireless-tools.

Thanks for the help.

[Edit] Confirm wireless-tools installed and latest version.

[pcolbeck]

If you have wpasupplicant and wireless-tools installed then

ip -a

Should list the wireless interface.

[Martin109]

If you have wpasupplicant and wireless-tools installed then

ip -a

Should list the wireless interface.

Yep. ip -a link gives:

Code: [Select]

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp0s31f6: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e4:b9:7a:00:36:f7 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 04:d3:b0:27:ae:5c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

and wifi now working!  (Output above was before it was activated).

Many thanks for the help everyone!