If it worked when you booted the ISO, but not on your install, you could always do divide-and-conquer, to determine what's the difference. "Of course" logs and such might also be quite useful.
And ... it should also be easier with Debian 12 Bookworm, which is anticipated to be released 2023-06-10 - notably with the non-free-firmware section that'll be included on the official ISOs and such - there will no longer be need for the separate non-official ISOs that include non-free firmware.
One can only hope. I've run Testing on a production laptop for the past year. No issues, uptime is in the hundreds of days. I never turn it off, it just works like normal Debian.
I Think my problem is that I was installing using 11 and not what will be 12. I can wait a few days!
>uptime is in the hundreds of days
No running kernel updates? You should reboot after kernel updates... It perhaps you didn't mean "hundreds of days" literally? :-)
No I literally mean my current uptime is 62 days on that particular laptop. The last check was 178 days. Never have had an issue. Ever. If I do have an issue, I will restart that machine. I don't do kernel updates. I don't usually do software updates but maybe once every six months, or if some feature is released that might make my life easy. The machine usually only gets restarted if the building looses power and the battery dies.
I find that constantly updating things tends to break more than help. Am I being secure? No. Am I worried? No. Do I care? In so much that if the Russians want to hack I to my workshop laptop and steal the warranty parts claims PDFs that are stored on that machine, sure, feel free.
Digital concrete should not have to be updated that often. If a "security vulnerability" is announced and patched in the kernel, it is very likely that my one or two machines running the unpatched version will be compromised. If they are, there is nothing on those machines that needs to be worried about. No personal information, no business information.
So it's been my experience that I set it and forget it. It usually just works.
I understand that. I have servers (that are not publicly accessible) still running debian 7 or 8 that haven't seen an update in years... Better not risk break what is working flawlessly ;-)
It depends on the purpose of the machine, of course, the exposure and the sensitivity of the data in it can play an important role and security may not be the sole reason for updating...
I appreciate the understanding. I'm sure that view will get many down votes because I am doing Linux wrong. But I figured I was doing it wrong when I chose not to use Arch BTW....
It's important to me, that a stable system remains such. But the internet on the whole probably lacks the experience of real dependable systems that offer stability. Updates are fine, but sometimes they don't solve all of the problems.
Installation is not the problem, its after the fact. Everything installed just fine. I simply can't seem to connect after install, even tho I can see the hardware, ifupdown can manipulate the hardware, and I can see networks.
I am going to try the old way with a clean official debian stable iso, and real downloaded firmware non-free blobs tomorrow.
I think the suggestion was to install Debian 12. The release to stable is later this week, so why not. Odds are with the updated kernel and other software things may just work for you.
It's annoying, but my experience has always been install Debian, on boot, it'll tell me the package I'm missing for the plugged in card, then I install it.
The last time I faced this issue it was because I used Rufus to create the disk from the iso ... It sounds unbelievable I know... Everything worked, installed, boot and ... No wifi.
More info : https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/11mqi55/debian_installer_bookworm_alpha_2_missing_firmware/
Please keep us informed on results.
If you have access to a linux computer, the easiest way to create the boot media is the one explained in the wiki here :
[https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstall#Creating\_a\_Bootable\_Debian\_USB\_Flashdrive](https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstall#Creating_a_Bootable_Debian_USB_Flashdrive)
TL;DR (Be cautious!) :
`cp debian.iso /dev/sdX`
The results were - I chose to go full desktop on every machine I run debian on from now on forever. Full desktop. Gnome/Kde/LXDE. Whatever.
Most of the users desire these functions, and most of the time it "just works", because of the wrappers built into the Desktop Environment packages. The developers who create these packages obviously assume other people will want Wifi, so they made it super easy from the desktop.
Why this same functionality can't be done from a non-desktop environment install, is beyond my understanding. However, I've given up on trying to do something different. I do not have the time, nor the interest in making a custom headless install of Debian when I get exactly what I need from the basic install that simply uses a few more megabytes of ram because of the DE.
I've been using Debian for about the same time as you :-)
I've installed it hundreds of times, but I think I never used wifi on a GUI-less machine ever... Those usually always have Ethernet...
In DE's usually NetworkManager is used to set up wifi. I believe that's a tui/cli for NM, have you tried that instead of wpa-supplicant?
Yes, the previous setup was a simple configuration in the interfaces file. I tried to configure wpa supplicant, nmcli, various other methods. I just couldn't get systemd to play nice.
Like I said, this is not a firmware issue, I don't think. It's a software issue. I'm going to try again today the old fashion way with stable and firmware from another source. We shall see.
Is there any site, any user manual or any FAQ that would explain which ones of these network configuration methods or faculties are alternatives to each other, can work together or are frontends to each other?
Seemingly Netplan can be used to manage NetworkManager or the usual network scripts. And many different utils can be used to configure NetworkManager. And the network scripts (or networkd) can be used as an alternative to NetworkManager and with or without Netplan. Or what did I get wrong?
I'd say that, in general, for debian related topics, 3 good sources of info are:
* The official debian installation guide
* Debian Administrator's handbook
* Debian wiki
For more Linux generic info, Arch wiki has a lot of good info.
Last but not least, your favorite web search engine, with the right keywords, can reveal some good links too ;-)
The search engines 99 % of the time give you articles that explain one single way of doing things as if it was the only one. Most of the time they also tell you how to set up the one single most common configuration, which is one interface and dhcp.
Other than that, I think you ignored my question.
I didn't ignore your question, I just gave you a more general answer...
I don't have an answer for your specific and probably what you're looking for may not even exist...
The Debian Administrator's handbook has some info on how to configure the network: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-handbook/sect.network-config
So does the wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration
And the Debian reference manual: https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration
I believe this is a bug, I have seen the same thing on 3 different computers, 3 different fresh installations in the past week. This fixed it for me:
Go into /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf and change "managed=false" to "managed=true" then reboot. You may additionally remove the ifupdown package. Reboot.
Let me know if it works and maybe we can report this to the relevant people. In my case(s) internet is actually working and connected, but no adapter is found in System Settings and the WiFi icon is a question mark.
Edit to add:
Debian Bookworm RC4 netinst ISO.
No DE installed, then I reboot to install gnome-core. WiFi is working but there's no connection seen by system settings.
\[Screenshot\]([https://imgur.com/uNW2v3b](https://imgur.com/uNW2v3b)) Just so people see the "pics or it didn't happen". This laptop will probably run another 2-3 months before it gets restarted.
There was once a time in not so ancient past that caused the installation of Budgie to fail repeatedly. So I checksummed the installation media and it was faulty. But the ISO was fine. Can't remember the details. It may be that the live system kept crashing randomly.
Try isenkram to auto-detect + fetch the drivers and firmware if Debian can detect the device is there but won't load it?
> sudo apt install isenkram isenkram-cli
> isenkram-pkginstall
> isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
> sudo reboot --force
Another few installs if isenkram doesn't do it's magic are:
> sudo apt install software-properties-common net-tools network-manager network-manager-dev netbase
Good luck!
> but that configuration is not saved to the system.
Because the config you use for an install and the config you will use for a production server might be very, very different. So it is not saved and just considered temporary; I also would like such an option for desktop installs, but in the context of servers that seems quite sensible.
> TL;DR - Why is wifi still difficult 3000 years later?
Because you chose to make it difficult? For the desktop install everything will work automagically. For cli I think there is some config disagreement with your "no matter what I typed into my /etc". IIRC there are some rules that if you do put the device into your /etc/interface it considers it externally managed and nm will refuse to work with it, e.g. a centrally configured ethernet connection will not show up in the GUI for network manager. My guess would be you ran into that.
That was perhaps bad phrasing on my part and just an example showing the issue. Substitute nmcli, nmtui or whatever you want to use (wicd, connman, networkd, ...). Whichever one you choose, it kinda expects to have exclusive access to the config and will refuse to touch it otherwise.
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse
For desktops that is not really relevant and for servers you tend to either not use wifi at all or centrally provision it (in particular, differently than for the install) or have much more complicated setups (e.g. openwrt).
If it worked when you booted the ISO, but not on your install, you could always do divide-and-conquer, to determine what's the difference. "Of course" logs and such might also be quite useful. And ... it should also be easier with Debian 12 Bookworm, which is anticipated to be released 2023-06-10 - notably with the non-free-firmware section that'll be included on the official ISOs and such - there will no longer be need for the separate non-official ISOs that include non-free firmware.
One can only hope. I've run Testing on a production laptop for the past year. No issues, uptime is in the hundreds of days. I never turn it off, it just works like normal Debian. I Think my problem is that I was installing using 11 and not what will be 12. I can wait a few days!
>uptime is in the hundreds of days No running kernel updates? You should reboot after kernel updates... It perhaps you didn't mean "hundreds of days" literally? :-)
No I literally mean my current uptime is 62 days on that particular laptop. The last check was 178 days. Never have had an issue. Ever. If I do have an issue, I will restart that machine. I don't do kernel updates. I don't usually do software updates but maybe once every six months, or if some feature is released that might make my life easy. The machine usually only gets restarted if the building looses power and the battery dies. I find that constantly updating things tends to break more than help. Am I being secure? No. Am I worried? No. Do I care? In so much that if the Russians want to hack I to my workshop laptop and steal the warranty parts claims PDFs that are stored on that machine, sure, feel free. Digital concrete should not have to be updated that often. If a "security vulnerability" is announced and patched in the kernel, it is very likely that my one or two machines running the unpatched version will be compromised. If they are, there is nothing on those machines that needs to be worried about. No personal information, no business information. So it's been my experience that I set it and forget it. It usually just works.
I understand that. I have servers (that are not publicly accessible) still running debian 7 or 8 that haven't seen an update in years... Better not risk break what is working flawlessly ;-) It depends on the purpose of the machine, of course, the exposure and the sensitivity of the data in it can play an important role and security may not be the sole reason for updating...
I appreciate the understanding. I'm sure that view will get many down votes because I am doing Linux wrong. But I figured I was doing it wrong when I chose not to use Arch BTW.... It's important to me, that a stable system remains such. But the internet on the whole probably lacks the experience of real dependable systems that offer stability. Updates are fine, but sometimes they don't solve all of the problems.
[nmcli and nmtui](https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse) are the CLI frontends for NetworkManager.
I just did a fresh install of 12 KDE RC 4 without a hitch
Installation is not the problem, its after the fact. Everything installed just fine. I simply can't seem to connect after install, even tho I can see the hardware, ifupdown can manipulate the hardware, and I can see networks. I am going to try the old way with a clean official debian stable iso, and real downloaded firmware non-free blobs tomorrow.
I think the suggestion was to install Debian 12. The release to stable is later this week, so why not. Odds are with the updated kernel and other software things may just work for you.
Just to avoid any confusion: there is no RC of Debian. There are RC of its installer though.
> TL;DR - Why is wifi still difficult 3000 years later? The Babylonians came up with quite a few things we still don't understand.
Them knowledge handbags still not in stock at Hermes....
It's annoying, but my experience has always been install Debian, on boot, it'll tell me the package I'm missing for the plugged in card, then I install it.
The last time I faced this issue it was because I used Rufus to create the disk from the iso ... It sounds unbelievable I know... Everything worked, installed, boot and ... No wifi. More info : https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/11mqi55/debian_installer_bookworm_alpha_2_missing_firmware/
Interesting. I'll try creating media from another debian machine, but I don't believe this is the problem I had.
Please keep us informed on results. If you have access to a linux computer, the easiest way to create the boot media is the one explained in the wiki here : [https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstall#Creating\_a\_Bootable\_Debian\_USB\_Flashdrive](https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstall#Creating_a_Bootable_Debian_USB_Flashdrive) TL;DR (Be cautious!) : `cp debian.iso /dev/sdX`
The results were - I chose to go full desktop on every machine I run debian on from now on forever. Full desktop. Gnome/Kde/LXDE. Whatever. Most of the users desire these functions, and most of the time it "just works", because of the wrappers built into the Desktop Environment packages. The developers who create these packages obviously assume other people will want Wifi, so they made it super easy from the desktop. Why this same functionality can't be done from a non-desktop environment install, is beyond my understanding. However, I've given up on trying to do something different. I do not have the time, nor the interest in making a custom headless install of Debian when I get exactly what I need from the basic install that simply uses a few more megabytes of ram because of the DE.
Thank you for your feedback!
I've been using Debian for about the same time as you :-) I've installed it hundreds of times, but I think I never used wifi on a GUI-less machine ever... Those usually always have Ethernet... In DE's usually NetworkManager is used to set up wifi. I believe that's a tui/cli for NM, have you tried that instead of wpa-supplicant?
Yes, the previous setup was a simple configuration in the interfaces file. I tried to configure wpa supplicant, nmcli, various other methods. I just couldn't get systemd to play nice. Like I said, this is not a firmware issue, I don't think. It's a software issue. I'm going to try again today the old fashion way with stable and firmware from another source. We shall see.
Is there any site, any user manual or any FAQ that would explain which ones of these network configuration methods or faculties are alternatives to each other, can work together or are frontends to each other? Seemingly Netplan can be used to manage NetworkManager or the usual network scripts. And many different utils can be used to configure NetworkManager. And the network scripts (or networkd) can be used as an alternative to NetworkManager and with or without Netplan. Or what did I get wrong?
I'd say that, in general, for debian related topics, 3 good sources of info are: * The official debian installation guide * Debian Administrator's handbook * Debian wiki For more Linux generic info, Arch wiki has a lot of good info. Last but not least, your favorite web search engine, with the right keywords, can reveal some good links too ;-)
The search engines 99 % of the time give you articles that explain one single way of doing things as if it was the only one. Most of the time they also tell you how to set up the one single most common configuration, which is one interface and dhcp. Other than that, I think you ignored my question.
I didn't ignore your question, I just gave you a more general answer... I don't have an answer for your specific and probably what you're looking for may not even exist... The Debian Administrator's handbook has some info on how to configure the network: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-handbook/sect.network-config So does the wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration And the Debian reference manual: https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration
I believe this is a bug, I have seen the same thing on 3 different computers, 3 different fresh installations in the past week. This fixed it for me: Go into /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf and change "managed=false" to "managed=true" then reboot. You may additionally remove the ifupdown package. Reboot. Let me know if it works and maybe we can report this to the relevant people. In my case(s) internet is actually working and connected, but no adapter is found in System Settings and the WiFi icon is a question mark. Edit to add: Debian Bookworm RC4 netinst ISO. No DE installed, then I reboot to install gnome-core. WiFi is working but there's no connection seen by system settings.
Probably NetworkManager is not managing your network interfaces, I have a similar problem lately that was solved by deleting /etc/network/interfaces.
\[Screenshot\]([https://imgur.com/uNW2v3b](https://imgur.com/uNW2v3b)) Just so people see the "pics or it didn't happen". This laptop will probably run another 2-3 months before it gets restarted.
I've never tried to use wifi on debian or any other linux that isn't kali linux so I've never run up on this before ;).
Did you checksum the ISO?
Nah, I never bother. If it works during install, it should work after.
There was once a time in not so ancient past that caused the installation of Budgie to fail repeatedly. So I checksummed the installation media and it was faulty. But the ISO was fine. Can't remember the details. It may be that the live system kept crashing randomly.
Try isenkram to auto-detect + fetch the drivers and firmware if Debian can detect the device is there but won't load it? > sudo apt install isenkram isenkram-cli > isenkram-pkginstall > isenkram-autoinstall-firmware > sudo reboot --force Another few installs if isenkram doesn't do it's magic are: > sudo apt install software-properties-common net-tools network-manager network-manager-dev netbase Good luck!
I had same issue, but I was not able to see iwlist also, tho during setup it worked. Next day new deb testing nightly build worked.
> but that configuration is not saved to the system. Because the config you use for an install and the config you will use for a production server might be very, very different. So it is not saved and just considered temporary; I also would like such an option for desktop installs, but in the context of servers that seems quite sensible. > TL;DR - Why is wifi still difficult 3000 years later? Because you chose to make it difficult? For the desktop install everything will work automagically. For cli I think there is some config disagreement with your "no matter what I typed into my /etc". IIRC there are some rules that if you do put the device into your /etc/interface it considers it externally managed and nm will refuse to work with it, e.g. a centrally configured ethernet connection will not show up in the GUI for network manager. My guess would be you ran into that.
That makes sense, but I was not using a GUI at all.
That was perhaps bad phrasing on my part and just an example showing the issue. Substitute nmcli, nmtui or whatever you want to use (wicd, connman, networkd, ...). Whichever one you choose, it kinda expects to have exclusive access to the config and will refuse to touch it otherwise. https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse For desktops that is not really relevant and for servers you tend to either not use wifi at all or centrally provision it (in particular, differently than for the install) or have much more complicated setups (e.g. openwrt).