[SOLVED] Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260 headache in 14.1

FireBlast · 04-18-2014, 02:06 PM

Hi all,

I'm a newbie to Slackware and Linux in general. I've managed to successfully install 14.1 x64 but I am having trouble setting up the wifi. I'm running a Dell inspiron 7537 with an intel dual band wireless-n 7260 wireless card.

wlan0 is missing when running iwconfig. I downloaded iwlwifi-7260-ucode-22.1.7.0.tgz from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi and copied the .ucode file in /lib/firmware, but no luck.

I've tried lsmod, and iwlwifi is not in the list. Running modprobe iwlwifi returns "FATAL: Module iwlwifi not found"

Any advice on what to do from here?

Thanks

cynwulf · 04-19-2014, 08:17 AM

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...ported_Devices

FireBlast · 04-19-2014, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...ported_Devices

I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm looking at. It says that the card (intel 7260) is supported since kernel version 3.10 and Slackware is running 3.10.17. How does it help my issue?

allend · 04-19-2014, 10:33 AM

I would have expected this to work out of the box.
Slackware 14.1 provides the /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode in the kernel-firmware-20131008git-noarch-1.txz package. On my Slackware-current with the 3.10.30 kernel, '/sbin/modinfo iwlwifi' returns:

Quote:

filename: /lib/modules/3.10.30/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwlwifi.ko
license: GPL
author: Copyright(c) 2003-2013 Intel Corporation <ilw@linux.intel.com>
version: in-tree:
description: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
firmware: iwlwifi-100-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-135-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-105-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2030-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5150-2.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2a-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-3160-7.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode

Quote:

Running modprobe iwlwifi returns "FATAL: Module iwlwifi not found"

This suggests that there is some problem with your install. Did you do the recommended full install?

FireBlast · 04-19-2014, 10:55 AM

Yes, I did the recommended install. I'll try reinstalling again since it takes me only 10 minutes and see if the problems persists.

FireBlast · 04-19-2014, 11:26 AM

Reinstalled from scratch. I get the same:

Code:

bash-4.2# iwconfig
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

bash-4.2#

However, I don't get the "FATAL: Module iwlwifi not found" error anymore. Running modprobe iwlwifi doesn't return anything. Also, iwlwifi is listed in lsmod.

Could it be related to a switch to turn on the wifi card? I don't have one on my laptop. In windows 8.1 it's all done by software.

Thanks.

Edit:
I've got it working with http://askubuntu.com/questions/33166...260-version-63
Issue is fixed now, thanks.

allend · 04-19-2014, 08:56 PM

Glad you get it working. Well done!
Just to confirm for any future readers, what you actually did was edit iwl-7000.c and then recompile the iwlwifi kernel module?

FireBlast · 04-20-2014, 04:49 AM

I browsed a little bit about the wifi card, and I found out that even though the firmware has been added in 3.10, the kernel still had issues with the card and was subsequently patched in newer kernel versions.

I know this might sound stupid, but I am not 100% sure what I did besides following instructions (I'm a newbie). I'm still trying to understand what I did as silly as it sounds.

1. Fresh full install of slackware.
2. Downloaded http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kern...-rc3-1.tar.bz2 and https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ke...i-7260-7.ucode
3. Followed "chili555"'s instructions from http://askubuntu.com/questions/33166...260-version-63. I'll post them here for reference in case the URL will be down in the future

Code:

cd Desktop/backports-3.11-rc3-1/
make defconfig-iwlwifi
make
sudo make install

4.

Code:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode /lib/firmware/  <--or wherever you downloaded it
sudo modprobe -r iwldvm  <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

At this point running iwconfig brings wlan0 interface and I can connect to the network (works fine for both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks)

FireBlast · 04-20-2014, 04:49 AM

I browsed a little bit about the wifi card, and I found out that even though the firmware has been added in 3.10, the kernel still had issues with the card and was subsequently patched in newer kernel versions.

I know this might sound stupid, but I am not 100% sure what I did besides following instructions (I'm a newbie). I'm still trying to understand what I did as silly as it sounds.

1. Fresh full install of slackware.
2. Downloaded http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kern...-rc3-1.tar.bz2 and https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ke...i-7260-7.ucode
3. Followed "chili555"'s instructions from http://askubuntu.com/questions/33166...260-version-63. I'll post them here for reference in case the URL will be down in the future

Code:

cd Desktop/backports-3.11-rc3-1/
make defconfig-iwlwifi
make
sudo make install

4.

Code:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode /lib/firmware/  <--or wherever you downloaded it
sudo modprobe -r iwldvm  <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

At this point running iwconfig brings wlan0 interface and I can connect to the network (works fine for both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks)

ndc85430 · 05-24-2014, 11:54 AM

Wonderful, thanks! In my case, didn't need to obtain a new version of the firmware - the iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode that comes with 14.1 works fine.

Richard Cranium · 05-24-2014, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FireBlast

I browsed a little bit about the wifi card, and I found out that even though the firmware has been added in 3.10, the kernel still had issues with the card and was subsequently patched in newer kernel versions.

I know this might sound stupid, but I am not 100% sure what I did besides following instructions (I'm a newbie). I'm still trying to understand what I did as silly as it sounds.

The backports stuff is where someone takes the latest version of wireless code that works with the latest kernel and makes those changes required to compile and run it in older kernels. That's called backporting. (Taking old stuff and changing it so that it works with newer things is called porting.)

You then built the newer firmware and installed it over the older version.

Quote:

1. Fresh full install of slackware.
2. Downloaded http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kern...-rc3-1.tar.bz2 and https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ke...i-7260-7.ucode
3. Followed "chili555"'s instructions from http://askubuntu.com/questions/33166...260-version-63. I'll post them here for reference in case the URL will be down in the future

Code:

cd Desktop/backports-3.11-rc3-1/
make defconfig-iwlwifi
make
sudo make install

4.

Code:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode /lib/firmware/  <--or wherever you downloaded it
sudo modprobe -r iwldvm  <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi <--If it is not loaded, OK, please proceed
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

At this point running iwconfig brings wlan0 interface and I can connect to the network (works fine for both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks)