Unable to get wifi working on custom coreos installation

Ask Fedora
1

Hi Guys ,
First time posting here
so i have a old laptop which i wanted to use as a homelab previously i used debian but i wanted to change to ucore and somehow after reading all the docs found out its coreos itself so i createdt eh butane file adn stuff to get the wifi drivers installed duringt eh booting process itself

variant: fcos
version: 1.4.0
passwd:
  users:
    - name: aizen
      ssh_authorized_keys:
        -xxxxxx
      password_hash: xxxxx
systemd:
  units:
    # Enable Wi-Fi in NetworkManager for an Intel wireless card
    - name: rpm-ostree-install-wifi.service
      enabled: true
      contents: |
        [Unit]
        Description=Enable Wi-Fi
        Wants=network-online.target
        After=network-online.target
        Before=zincati.service
        ConditionPathExists=!/var/lib/%N.stamp
        [Service]
        Type=oneshot
        RemainAfterExit=yes
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/rpm-ostree install -y --allow-inactive NetworkManager-wifi iwlwifi-mvm-firmware
        ExecStart=/bin/touch /var/lib/%N.stamp
        ExecStart=/bin/systemctl --no-block reboot
        [Install]
        WantedBy=multi-user.target
storage:
  files:
    - path: /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/guest.nmconnection
      mode: 0600
      contents:
        inline: |
          [connection]
          id=nothing
          type=wifi
          autoconnect=true
          [wifi]
          ssid=test
          [wifi-security]
          key-mgmt=wpa-psk
          psk=12345678
          [ipv4]
          method=auto

see the thing is that i cannot connect my old laptop to ethernet so i was trying to make it install itself with wifi itself but failed miserably and after reading some docs i understood that i can make the wifi work after the installtion but during the installation i must use usb tethering and stuff to make it work but after so many tries the installation is successful but after logging in i get a msg saying something like failed to install wifi.service and the wifi wlp** something is also not being shown when i run ip a and also runnign ping google.com even after connecting to usb tethering gives temporary failure in dns resolution pls help me i am strugggling to get this work from the past week.

sorry for the bad explanation this is the first time i wanted to do something without using ai for everything so forgive my bad writing and correct me if i said anything wrong :melting_face:

[1]

  1. > Blockquote ↩︎

2

Your wifi hardware may not have an in-kernel driver (module). The LHDB https://linux-hardware.org has “probes” for many Linux systems so can tell you what works for others on your hardware. Due to AI web scrapers it may take several tries to connect to the LHDB. If you WiFi hardware does not have a good in-kernel driver, there are USB dongles with in-kernel drivers: https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi.

3

i mean it worked with debian though i mean when i insatlled debian was able to detect my wifi card and connect to wifi during the installation process

4

Debian has different rules for some non-free drivers and firmware.
Some vendors are slow to update drivers and associated firmware for newer kernels. I keep a USB WiFi dongle for use while waiting for updates to fix issues with onboard chipsets. If your wifi hardware is replaceable, you may want to look for one with reliable in-kernel drivers.

5

Thanks for explaining, bro but It turns out my laptop has an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi card. Since I don’t have a USB dongle right now, is there a way I can use USB tethering from my phone during the installation process to get internet, and then set up the internal Wi-Fi so it works after the whole installation is complete? What would be the proper way to do that with CoreOS

6

Intel AX200 should have good support, but Intel support has had recent lapses – I assume due to reorganization getting rid of Intel Linux and moving people to AI projects, so you may have to experiment with kernel versions and firmware packages. You could try a recent Live USB spin for Workstation to check that it works with your hardware. I use Ventoy to have several Fedora ISO installers and troubleshooting ISO readily available.

Have you considered the procedures described in https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-coreos-enabling-wifi-without-internet-connection-or-building-an-iso-with-wifi-pre-installed/163979?

7

Solid recommendation from George…

As I understand it, but don’t have any personal experience with it, by default CoreOS’s NetworkManager will DHCP any interface it sees, including a USB-tethered phone that shows up like a wired NIC without any special drivers needed. You should then be able to enable USB tethering on your phone, plug it into the freshly-installed machine, log in at the console, and confirm you have a connection via curl or pinging something.

With tethered internet working, run: sudo rpm-ostree install -y --allow-inactive NetworkManager-wifi iwlwifi-dvm-firmware iwlwifi-mvm-firmware. Because that modifies the OS image layer, it will require a reboot to take effect. Before rebooting, you could put a NetworkManager keyfile into your Ignition/Butane config ahead of time so it’s there on your next boot or, after you’ve rebooted with the wifi packages active, just use nmcli or nmtui interactively to add the connection.

Did I understand you that a wired connection on this machine isn’t an option?

8

thank you bro for this recommendation i think i will try out by the live usb and will also try layering the coreos with wifi drivers beforehand booting it up on the laptop too

9

ok i will try what u have said too and yeah wired connection is not possible on this machine