Realtek 8852 wifi kernel module is missing

[Francois Thirioux]

Hi,

Just got a Thinkpad with Realtek 8852a wifi card. I installed Impish daily (kernel 5.13).
Not recognized.
The firmware is natively present in firmware folder, /rtw89/rtw8852a_fw.bin .

But the kernel module is not loaded and in fact no module is loadable!
sudo modprobe rtw8[completion] does not return this wifi card's module.

So I did run for:
https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw89
and it does work but needs to be done for each kernel upgrade...

Note that Bluetooth was natively ok.

I tried 5.14 Ubuntu kernel from unstable ppa but same issue.

lspci
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8852
---
ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu68
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC2: fthx 2333 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: fthx 2333 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: fthx 2333 F.... pulseaudio
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-09-15 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" - Alpha amd64 (20210910)
MachineType: LENOVO 21A0000VFR
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 amdgpu
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.14.0-9-generic root=/dev/mapper/vgubuntu-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.14.0-9.9-generic 5.14.1
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-5.14.0-9-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-5.14.0-9-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.199
Tags: impish
Uname: Linux 5.14.0-9-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin lxd plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 06/21/2021
dmi.bios.release: 1.9
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: R1MET39W (1.09 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 21A0000VFR
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Defined
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.ec.firmware.release: 1.9
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrR1MET39W(1.09):bd06/21/2021:br1.9:efr1.9:svnLENOVO:pn21A0000VFR:pvrThinkPadP14sGen2a:skuLENOVO_MT_21A0_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPadP14sGen2a:rvnLENOVO:rn21A0000VFR:rvrNotDefined:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNone:
dmi.product.family: ThinkPad P14s Gen 2a
dmi.product.name: 21A0000VFR
dmi.product.sku: LENOVO_MT_21A0_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad P14s Gen 2a
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad P14s Gen 2a
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command only once, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 1943817

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

apport information

[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

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[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Pirouette Cacahuète (lissyx)]

Hello,

I can relate there, same situation: brand new ThinkPad P14s Gen2 AMD with this WiFi chip. The driver provided on GitHub (https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw89) is mostly the same as the one being pushed to upstream, e.g? v6 is https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/?series=534633&state=*

I can confirm that it is solid enough to provide a stable link.

I don't know if the kernel freeze can impact third-parties modules, but for what is is worth, there is a debian packaging provided in the github project, building with debuild produces a dkms-ready package.

[Pirouette Cacahuète (lissyx)]

Can we hope that the rtw89 dkms package be at least available in the repos for 21.10 ?

[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

Some recent kernel reviewing updates:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/?series=559649

Could anyone from kernel team tell us what's the plan here?
Are we waiting for reviewing to be completed?
At the moment, rt 8852a users rely on a third party package, so that's not good either... :-)

[Pirouette Cacahuète (lissyx)]

According to the series in https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/?series=559649&state=*, this has been accepted. rtw89 repo now seems to have this v7 of the driver, and mentions it should be in the next 5.16 kernel.