Brand new Qubes install on a Dell Inspiron 3250 laptop. Everything is working except for the RTL8821ce chipset and driver. Tried everything to get that working and I never could get it working. One of the people trying to help me with the problem said to just buy an Intel 2230 wireless card, install it in the laptop, and that for sure will work with Qubes. It’s even documented as working on the HCL. So, I buy the card (it’s an Intel AX210NGW DTK WiFi Card WiFi 6E) and physical install it in the laptop. I boot Qubes and the Network Manager does not come up when I start sys-net/sys-net-perm (non-disposable vm). I downloaded the drivers from Intel…and put them in /tmp on net-sys-perm. It’s like a hundred folders and files.
I can’t find out how to install the Intel 2230 driver in sys-net.
What is the install command I need to run?
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Given the larger amount of work you’ve done on your system previously, and as it was a new Qubes install, it’s best to begin anew and re-install Qubes. I’ve tried Qubes on a number of different platforms with the AX210 and they all worked well (AX201/211 need a specific chip set to function).
I learned yesterday, after much effort, that my BE200 WiFi card wasn’t recognized on my Asus W680-ACE i9-14900K system if an nVidia GTX1080 was used instead of the internal graphics. Given the time spent learning this fact I didn’t go any farther. If a Qubes install doesn’t work, then consider possible conflicts (yikes).
EDIT: As a time saver I always boot a newly configured system with Debian live, Endeavouros, etc. to ensure everything is seen before the much longer Qubes installation. If components are not seen under something like Fedora, Debian or Arch they certainly won’t be seen with Qubes.
Did a bit of digging and saw the 3520 came with a CNVio2 AX201 (CNVio2 offloads some functions to the CPU versus an all-in-one AX200/AX210 as a cost saver and uses fewer PCIe lanes - as low as one). Saw a Dell 3520/3530 can use both. If it’s seen by any other OS then any issue would be with Qubes.
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I ran the command sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi and it said I already had the latest version installed.
Yet, Network Manager doesn’t appear to be seeing the Wifi chipset.
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I’d still re-install. Then you’re sure. I have not always had the best of luck installing firmware after the fact (I had to re-install Qubes to get my BE200 card working).
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I will if I need to. But all changes were made in a single qube (sys-net-perm) and I reversed each of them when they didn’t work. So, I think at most I’d just have to re-do the single qube. But, yeah, if nothing else works, start from scratch.
But in this case, I’m just trying to get the right sudo apt install command to load the new driver. I don’t know what to put after sudo apt install…what is the correct driver name to ensure I’m loading the 2230 driver?
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What you posted above is the correct command.
One would think adding firmware on Qubes would work like any other Linux system, but that is not always the case.
Is your sys-net labeled sys-net-perm? Haven’t tested if that would work.
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I solved it. It was super simple. Just an oversight.
I had to add the new Intel driver (01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 160MHz) as an option under Devices always connected to this qube in the qube’s Devices settings.
Wireless networking is working great now!!
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Great to hear. And “thank you” for the tip.
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