The officially official Devuan Forum!

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 11  

Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

So I just built a new AMD system this week based on an X570 motherboard and 5900x CPU. I installed Refracta OS and even Devuan Beowulf (alongside Windows on a separate partition) and could not get either the WiFi nor the Ethernet to work. So that means no updating or installing. This is not an issue on Ubuntu-based distros.

This was also not an issue on my previous AMD system with a B450 motherboard and 3700x CPU. Just for reference, this new system has the Intel WiFi 6 AX200 160 Mhz chip, and Realtek PCIe 2.5GbE Ethernet chip.

Just wanted to report this issue for future updates of Devuan. I enjoy using Devuan/Refracta OS on one of my PC's as a lightweight distro that just works well. However with no networking, that is currently not possible on newer systems. I'm also a Linux noob, so I won't be doing any building of driver packages, etc. I'm more of an install and everything just works out of the box type.

Thanks for reading!

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 967  

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

So I just built a new AMD system this week based on an X570 motherboard and 5900x CPU. I installed Refracta OS and even Devuan Beowulf (alongside Windows on a separate partition) and could not get either the WiFi nor the Ethernet to work. So that means no updating or installing. This is not an issue on Ubuntu-based distros.

This was also not an issue on my previous AMD system with a B450 motherboard and 3700x CPU. Just for reference, this new system has the Intel WiFi 6 AX200 160 Mhz chip, and Realtek PCIe 2.5GbE Ethernet chip.

Just wanted to report this issue for future updates of Devuan. I enjoy using Devuan/Refracta OS on one of my PC's as a lightweight distro that just works well. However with no networking, that is currently not possible on newer systems. I'm also a Linux noob, so I won't be doing any building of driver packages, etc. I'm more of an install and everything just works out of the box type.

Thanks for reading!

Which amd processors are on your system and what year were they out at?

More info might be useful... if they ryzen processors, you might have issues... at least without blobs anyways...

There is a way though to get your wifi card working though. You need to alas, enable the non-free repository.

Someone here can give you more info, I am sure, but if even ethernet isn't an option, I cannot help you further, but someone else might be able to.

---

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Feelings are not facts
If you wish to be humbled, try to exalt yourself long term  If you wish to be exalted, try to humble yourself long term
Favourite operating systems: Hyperbola Devuan OpenBSD
Peace Be With us All!

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3,125  

Website

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

That CPU and the wireless & internet cards are only supported by the kernel version in the beowulf-backports repository. The wireless card also needs the backported iwlwifi firmware package and the ethernet card probably needs the backported Realtek firmware package.

These are known issues and the package versions in the main beowulf repositories will never be bumped because that's not how Devuan works but thank you for your report :-)

---

Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 967  

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

Welp, I guess there is your answer...

-_-

Just a quick edit though,  you may have to switch distros if you aren't willing to build or install using .deb packages.

It really isn't that hard, but if your unwilling, alas... nothing we can do.

Last edited by zapper (2020-12-28 23:16:28)

---

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Feelings are not facts
If you wish to be humbled, try to exalt yourself long term  If you wish to be exalted, try to humble yourself long term
Favourite operating systems: Hyperbola Devuan OpenBSD
Peace Be With us All!

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 11  

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

Thank you for your replies. I actually use Refracta OS, but it's not much different than Devuan. I only tried Devuan when I couldn't get networking working in the latest version of Refracta. If I can't use Refracta, then I would use Mint, but I'm having issues with getting Refracta Snapshot working on Mint, which I have already posted about elsewhere. Thank you!

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

Here's one with backports kernel (kinda old one now) and wireless firmware already installed for testing new hardware. It's not the full mix - openbox, lxpanel, not a lot else.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 5_1323.iso

Update: Here's a newer one with 5.9 kernel.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 9_0205.iso

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 11  

Re: Wifi and Ethernet not working in Devuan on newer AMD system

Here's one with backports kernel (kinda old one now) and wireless firmware already installed for testing new hardware. It's not the full mix - openbox, lxpanel, not a lot else.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 5_1323.iso

Update: Here's a newer one with 5.9 kernel.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 9_0205.iso

Thanks for the reply! When you get a chance could you look at the second part of my thread here:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=4023