Enable WiFi on a Dell E7470 Laptop

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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!

Latitude E7470

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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