Re: kern/52411: Cannot load iwn0 firmware (Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200

[Donald Allen <donaldcallen%gmail.com@localhost>]

On 17 July 2017 at 08:37, Christos Zoulas <christos%zoulas.com@localhost> wrote:
> On Jul 16, 10:28pm, donaldcallen%gmail.com@localhost (Donald Allen) wrote:
> -- Subject: Re: kern/52411: Cannot load iwn0 firmware (Intel Centrino Wireles
>
> | This is beginning to feel like a documentation problem. I'm damned if
> | I can find anything in the "Guide" or any of the other documentation
> | available starting at netbsd.org on how to set up wifi. As I mentioned
> | in my original report, there was a /libdata/firmware/iwn file and now
> | I find out that despite this, I needed to install a package to obtain
> | the firmware? Where is all this documented? Maybe I missed it, but I
> | did make an effort to find it and did not.
>
> It is all there for me:
>
> [8:37am] 1670>cd /libdata/firmware/if_iwn/
> [8:37am] 1671>ls
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-100-ucode      README.iwlwifi-5000-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-1000-ucode     README.iwlwifi-5150-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-105-ucode      README.iwlwifi-6000-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-135-ucode      README.iwlwifi-6000g2a-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-2000-ucode     README.iwlwifi-6000g2b-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-2030-ucode     README.iwlwifi-6050-ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-4965-ucode     iwlwifi-100-5.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-5000-ucode     iwlwifi-1000-3.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-5150-ucode     iwlwifi-105-6.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-6000-ucode     iwlwifi-135-6.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-6000g2a-ucode  iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-6000g2b-ucode  iwlwifi-2030-6.ucode
> LICENSE.iwlwifi-6050-ucode     iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-100-ucode       iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-1000-ucode      iwlwifi-5150-2.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-105-ucode       iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-135-ucode       iwlwifi-6000g2a-5.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-2000-ucode      iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-2030-ucode      iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode
> README.iwlwifi-4965-ucode
>
> Do you have the same files?

As I said in my original report, I needed to have a functioning system
on the machine in question, so I've installed a Linux distribution and
therefore cannot check exactly what was in /libdata/firmware. I did
mention previously that there was a file, perhaps a directory, in that
firmware directory and it certainly had the string 'iwn' in its name.
It may well have been if_iwn.

I did a pretty vanilla install of NetBSD 7.1 on this machine. I did
elect to customize the sets, eliminating games and tests from the
defaults and adding some things, too, e.g., documentation. So I think
it's reasonable to assume that I had the same firmware files you do,
if they are a standard part of the installation, as they appear to be,
despite the confusion about whether firmware gets installed by default
or via a package. But after setting up the wifi device (I did the
install using the ethernet port), the boot-time attempts to load the
firmware always failed, as I reported and the wifi device was not
functioning (I tried to ping my gateway).

I do have a spare 320GB USB drive and thought I'd try redo-ing the
install to that drive. But with the drive plugged in when booting the
installer system, there does not appear to be a way to choose that
drive as the target. The only choice I get is the internal disk.