When I received my new Dell Latitude E7470, I installed immediatly a Debian testing (Stretch) on it. This laptop, is really, really great, and is working like a charm with Linux. I still have to install manually a WiFi firmware iwlwifi-8000C. A simple « sudo dpkg -i *.deb », and it worked quite well!
Recently, in the beginning of 2017, a Debian update (maybe to due to testing freeze? Or something else?) has broken it… The WiFi was not available anymore, as if no WiFi board were loaded! Let’s fix this!
How to know what is my WiFi board?
Several commands may help you: ip addr, lspci, lshw.
Using lspci, I know that my WiFi board i s a « Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a) »:
$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Skylake Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 08) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 520 (rev 07) 00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Skylake Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 08) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 21) 00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem (rev 21) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP CSME HECI #1 (rev 21) 00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Device 9d3d (rev 21) 00:17.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] (rev 21) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1) 00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d1a (rev f1) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 21) 00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC (rev 21) 00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio (rev 21) 00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus (rev 21) 00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I219-LM (rev 21) 01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a) 02:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS525A PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
But using lshw, I know that it is not correctly installed:
$ sudo lshw -C network *-network NON-RÉCLAMÉ description: Network controller produit: Wireless 8260 fabriquant: Intel Corporation identifiant matériel: 0 information bus: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: 3a bits: 64 bits horloge: 33MHz fonctionnalités: pm msi pciexpress cap_list configuration: latency=0 ressources: mémoire:e1100000-e1101fff *-network description: Ethernet interface produit: Ethernet Connection I219-LM fabriquant: Intel Corporation ...
How to install `iwlwifi` for Debian Testing
Follow the directives of the Debian Wiki iwlwifi. I am using Debian testing (Stretch).
I have added « non-free » to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
And then: update the package list, install « firmware-iwlwifi » package and enable « iwlwifi » in the Linux kernel using modprobe.
sudo dpkg --remove firmware-iwlwifi # Remove any previous install, just to be sure sudo apt update sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi # Remove any previous module, just to be sure sudo modprobe iwlwifi
I disable/enable the WiFi using my keyboard (Fn + Impr écran), and the WiFi was back! Yes!
lshw confirms it:
$ sudo lshw -C network *-network description: Interface réseau sans fil produit: Wireless 8260 fabriquant: Intel Corporation identifiant matériel: 0 information bus: pci@0000:01:00.0 nom logique: wlp1s0 version: 3a numéro de série: e4:a4:71:28:48:8f bits: 64 bits horloge: 33MHz fonctionnalités: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.9.0-1-amd64 firmware=22.361476.0 ip=192.168.1.212 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 ressources: irq:131 mémoire:e1100000-e1101fff *-network description: Ethernet interface produit: Ethernet Connection I219-LM fabriquant: Intel Corporation ...
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