Add wifi firmware to Debian
I was sent a new wifi adapter along with some other kit. On Sunday, I had a go at getting this working. So while most of the UK was watching the Jubilee pageant, I was working to get this hardware working on my desktop.
First task, is to work out what the hardware is as detected by the system. Therefore, as root
dmesg – which revealed the hardware for the wifi adapter.
[ 493.681212] firmware_class: See https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware for information about missing firmware
[ 493.681216] mt7601u 1-5:1.0: Direct firmware load for mt7601u.bin failed with error -2
[ 493.681841] mt7601u: probe of 1-5:1.0 failed with error -2
From this information, I undertook a search for mt7601u.bin on
This revealed I needed package
firmware-misc-nonfree
In order to install this, I needed to edit my sources.list file, in order to add, in non free
cd /etc/apt/ nano sources.list
and append, see where I have added non-free,
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
#deb-src deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib **non-free**
After doing this:-
- Save file
- Exit editor
Then to make changes take effect, run:
- apt update – re-reads sources list
- apt install firmware-misc-nonfree –> to install specified package(s)