Wifi adaptor not working – “firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode (-2)”

By | 28th January 2016

Background

  • Linux Version – Debian 8.6 Jessie

This is the first Debian machine (laptop) that I setup with wifi. Duration installation, it did ask for CD media for the wifi drivers and I ignored that during the Debian installation.

After installation is completed, as expected, wifi is not working. I can see errors about something failed to load and found the following errors in /var/log/kern.log

kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   10.458415] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode (-2)
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   10.458447] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   10.458448] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   11.525302] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-4.ucode (-2)
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   11.525366] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   11.525368] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.986152] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-3.ucode (-2)
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.986262] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.986268] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.989686] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-2.ucode (-2)
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.989796] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.989800] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.999731] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-1000-1.ucode (-2)
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.999831] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   12.999837] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
kern.log:Jan 24 16:20:04 hostname kernel: [   13.000381] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: no suitable firmware found!

Resolutions

Quick web search for iwlwifi and found the instructions from debian.org (Resource 1) – read and follow instructions.

  • echo deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free >> /etc/apt/sources.list
  • apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi
  • modprobe -r iwlwifi ; modprobe iwlwifi

Resources

  1. wiki.debian.org – iwlwifi

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