I’m currently have a problem getting wireless networking to work on a Lenovo ThinkPad T510 Laptop, the machine has an Intel Centrino N 1000 wireless card. I loaded CENTOS 7 on the machine and applied all of the software updated via a wired connection.
I’m trying to create a wireless connection via the built-in wireless card. I’ve down loaded Intel firmware for the card and copied it to the following sub-directory “/lib/firmware”. The downloaded firmware is “iwlwifi-1000-ucode-39.31.5.1”. Doing further research online suggest that once the firmware is copied in place I should be able to add the device, however, I see no place in network configuration or system tools to load a device. So how do I load a new device on CENTOS 7? Once the device is loaded, how do I load drivers for the device, in this case drivers for the wireless device.

Check your dmesg to make sure the firmware really loads.

I'm new to Linux can you tell me what a dmesg is?

Should the firmware load because it is in the "/lib/firmware" sub-directory? Or do I have to do something else in addition just coping the firmware?

Thanks

Copying the correct firmware to correct place will work, yes. Below is an example of dmesg, you can see it trells exactly what version it is looking for and where it must be to be found /lib/firmware/rtl_nic/rtl8168h-2.fw.

dmesg is the messaging bus that all messages from the kernel during initialization go to. You can see it by typing in dmesg as root, however it's generally rather long and probably much better if you either use grep to search for certain lines, or use tail to cut down on how much it shows, such as will show the last 25 lines of dmesg.

edit: beat to the punch.

I've posted what I found, it looks like I don't have a problem or do I and I just don't see it:

louis@localhost ~]$ dmesg | grep -i iwl
[ 16.095176] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[ 16.095242] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 16.673294] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 9.221.4.1 build 25532 op_mode iwldvm
[ 17.806072] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG disabled
[ 17.806077] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS enabled
[ 17.806078] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING disabled
[ 17.806080] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN, REV=0x74
[ 17.806129] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[ 18.643427] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'

Could I be missing drivers or something?

When I go to the Network Manager I only see Wired and Proxy Connection. When I try to add a connection I don't see wireless as an option.

What I'm I missing?

Thanks

will tell if driver is loaded, will tell if device node is created.

It does not look like the driver was loaded please see below:

lspci -k
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2193
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor PCI Express x16 Root Port (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 215f
Kernel driver in use: mei_me
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset KT Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2162
Kernel driver in use: serial
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2153
Kernel driver in use: e1000e
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2163
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 215e
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 06)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 06)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 06)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2163
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM57 Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2166
Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2168
Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2167
Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 06)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2190
Kernel driver in use: intel ips
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218M [NVS 3100M] (rev a2)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 215c
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 218f
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 35)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 3x3 AGN
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
0d:00.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd MMC/SD Host Controller (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2133
Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
0d:00.1 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5U2xx (R5U230 / R5U231 / R5U241) [Memory Stick Host Controller] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2134
0d:00.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 PCIe IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2136
Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 1st Generation Core i3/5/7 Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 1st Generation Core i3/5/7 Processor Reserved (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 1st Generation Core i3/5/7 Processor Reserved (rev 02)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2196

ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp0s25: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
link/ether 00:26:2d:fc:0b:87 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.1.66/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic enp0s25
valid_lft 76437sec preferred_lft 76437sec
inet6 2602:306:c496:a800:226:2dff:fefc:b87/64 scope global noprefixroute dynamic
valid_lft 2591774sec preferred_lft 604574sec
inet6 fe80::226:2dff:fefc:b87/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: wlp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
link/ether 00:24:d7:11:2e:c4 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: virbr0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN
link/ether 52:54:00:7e:b9:21 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.122.1/24 brd 192.168.122.255 scope global virbr0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
5: virbr0-nic: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master virbr0 state DOWN qlen 500
link/ether 52:54:00:7e:b9:21 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Can you tell me how to load the wireless driver?

Thanks

The driver is loaded.
The device is created.
Can't tell how to use it in CentOS, not my cup of tea.