15.3 does not see my wifi device

English Network/Internet
1

Lenovo T61 laptop. It has a switch on the front of the case to disable the radio (wifi). I normally keep it disabled since it is normally used on LAN interface.
When I updated from 15.2 -> 15.3 I forgot it was disabled.
Booting to 15.3 my wifi is not active. There is a led on the bezel to show when it is active.
This laptop still has XP in my grub config for legacy purposes, booting to XP confirms the wifi works.

Desktop is KDE, I use NetworkManager. When I use nmcli there is no return for the wifi device, only lo and eth0.

hwinfo for my wifi device is:

06: PCI 300.0: 0282 WLAN controller  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: svHJ.rpmEU4Bw6_A
  Parent ID: qTvu.czCARouY8b4
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:03:00.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x4230 "PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection"
  SubVendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  SubDevice: pci 0x1010 
  Revision: 0x61
  Features: WLAN
  Memory Range: 0xdf3fe000-0xdf3fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 17 (no events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00004230sv00008086sd00001010bc02sc80i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: iwl4965 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe iwl4965"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #20 (PCI bridge)

and this output from journalctl:


Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi 4965 driver for Linux, in-tree:
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965: Copyright(c) 2003-2011 Intel Corporation
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN, REV=0x4
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: device EEPROM VER=0x36, CALIB=0x5
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 11 802.11bg, 13 802.11a channels
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode failed with error -2
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: request for firmware file 'iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode' failed.
Jul 25 13:02:05 linux-T61 kernel: iwl4965 0000:03:00.0: no suitable firmware found!

and output from lsmod:


iwl4965               122880  0
iwlegacy               90112  1 iwl4965
mac80211             1028096  2 iwl4965,iwlegacy
cfg80211              872448  3 iwl4965,iwlegacy,mac80211

I see an error for firmware.
What do I need to do to get 15.3 to recognize my wifi?

2

Do you have the “kernel-firmware-iwlwifi” package installed? If not, install it an try booting again.

3

The installed version is 20210629-35.1
I suppose I can force a reinstall of that package to see if it works.

thanks

4

My T61, Leap 15.3, KDE has the same wifi chip, and works correctly. Searching YaST for 4965 finds kernel-firmware-iwlwifi and kernel-default-extra are installed. Does your system have the latter?

5

Hi
Then it is likely soft blocked, check the output from the rfkill command.

6

kernel-default-extra is installed.
There is no output from rfkill

Further info although I don’t think it matters. My grub default is 5.13.1-1.gbebf622-default
For whatever reason that fails to boot and I have not bothered to deal with it due to time constraints.
I have disabled the kernel-stable repo and reverted to the 4 basic leap15.3 repos.

I use grub’s menu for advance options and pick kernel 5.3.18-57-default to boot.
When I have time I’ll jump through the hoops to change my default for grub.
I mention this because maybe it is important even though I do not know why it would be.

7

SOLVED.

Thanks for tip on kernel-default-extra and the confirmation that a T61 wifi worked fine.

In YaST I did an unconditional update selecting kernel-default-extra, kernel-default-optional, & the firmware package for intel.
kernel-default-optional complained and I chose to proceed with the first option which did a system change.

All is working fine now. When I find time I need to clean it all up by changing my default kernel in grub.