On 27/07/2025 at 20:44, Jonathan Kamens wrote:
Correct, the Debian live thumb drive never prompts for for the firmware file and still successfully connects to the WiFi.
Can you check kernel logs with `sudo dmesg|less` and look for lines about firmware and (iwlwifi or the wireless device bus ID) ?
Run the command "/sbin/iwconfig" and check if it reports wireless extensions on the wireless interface wl*.It reports "no wireless extensions" for the wlp131s0f0 device.
This explains why the installer does not identify it as a wireless device. Both iwconfig and netcfg use the legacy wireless extensions API (wext) but it seems that Wi-Fi 7 devices can only be used via the newer nl80211 API (used by iw and NetworkManager), not via the wext API. Adding nl80211 support to netcfg will probably be a post-trixie goal.