Help with BE200 driver for Linux

[MultipleMessagers]

My system is Ubuntu 22.04. I can see the BE200 with "lspci" which shows "Intel Corporation Device 272b (rev 1a)". How do I get the driver?

[H_Mlysgeek]

Hi MultipleMessagers

To obtain the driver for your Intel BE200 device on Ubuntu 22.04, you can follow these steps:

1. Identify the Driver: First, you need to determine which driver is compatible with your device. Since your device is identified as "Intel Corporation Device 272b (rev 1a)" with the lspci command, you'll likely need the appropriate Intel driver for this device.

2. Update Package Lists: Open a terminal and update your package lists to ensure you have the latest information about available packages. You can do this by running the following command:

   

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   sudo apt update

3. Install Driver Package: Once your package lists are updated, you can search for and install the appropriate driver package. Since Ubuntu often includes drivers in the kernel, you may not need to install anything separately. However, if a driver package is available, you can search for it using:

   

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   apt search <driver-name>

   Replace <driver-name> with the name of the driver you're looking for. For Intel devices, it's often part of the kernel. If there's a specific package available for your device, you can install it using:

   
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   sudo apt install <driver-package-name>

   Replace <driver-package-name> with the name of the driver package you found.

4. Reboot Your System: After installing the driver package, it's a good idea to reboot your system to ensure the changes take effect.

5. Verify Installation: Once your system has restarted, you can verify that the driver is installed and functioning correctly. You can do this by checking the output of lsmod to see if the driver module is loaded, or by checking the device status with lspci -nnk.

If you encounter any issues during the installation process or if the driver doesn't work as expected, you can search for solutions online or consult the official Ubuntu documentation and support channels for assistance.

Regards,

Harry

[MultipleMessagers]

Do you mind tell me what the <driver-name> should be? The device is BE200 and the OS is Ubuntu 22.04 Thanks!

[5urg3]

You don’t need a driver, you need the firmware…

The way WiFi adapters work on Linux, the “driver” is pretty much universal and works with a ton of different WiFi adapters and vendors, but it needs a specific firmware image to use for your adapter, and if it can’t find that, it won’t work.

Because the BE200 is so new, you’ll need to use the “proposed” updates and install or update the linux-firmware package.

Info can be found here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jammy/+source/linux-firmware/+bug/2028065

There is also a bug that affects the BE200 specifically with some kernels, keep an eye out for that too

See this for more info:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/mantic/+source/linux/+bug/2058808

[MultipleMessagers]

Ignore this comment

[MultipleMessagers]

@5urg3 Thanks for the information. I am newbie on this. Please excuse me if the question is amateur. 

I went to https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/linux-firmware.git/tree/?h=for-upstream and copied the two files to my Ubuntu 22.02 machine under /lib/firmware

iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-83.ucode
iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0.pnvm

And then I reboot the computer and check if the wifi driver is loaded. But as shown below, it seems not loaded. I wonder if this is the correct way to install the firmware.

ubuntu@hardware-ubuntu:/usr/lib/firmware$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Network controller
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: 1a
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:7fc00000-7fc03fff
  *-network:0
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1d.1
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.1
       logical name: eno1

[5urg3]

Here just run these two commands

sudo apt install linux-oem-22.04d

sudo apt install linux-firmware/jammy-proposed

[MultipleMessagers]

The first command "sudo apt install linux-oem-22.04d" run successfully. But the second command said the package was not found.

ubuntu@hardware-ubuntu:/boot$ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy InRelease
Get:2 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates InRelease [119 kB]
Get:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-security InRelease [110 kB]
Hit:4 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports InRelease
Hit:5 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/ubuntuhandbook1/ppa/ubuntu jammy InRelease
Fetched 229 kB in 1s (261 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
76 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
ubuntu@hardware-ubuntu:/boot$ sudo apt install linux-firmware/jammy-proposed
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Package linux-firmware is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However, the following packages replace it:
  firmware-sof-signed

E: Release 'jammy-proposed' for 'linux-firmware' was not found
ubuntu@hardware-ubuntu:/boot$

And do I have to boot up with Linux 6.5 instead of Linux 6.2?

[5urg3]

You will have to enable the proposed repo first, and then re run that command

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed

And yes, IIRC wifi 7 requires kernel 6.5

[MultipleMessagers]

Thanks, @5urg3 . I finally installed the firmware and it can get the IP for the BE200. But there seems to be some issue.

So I went to the link that you gave: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/mantic/+source/linux/+bug/2058808

From the last comment in the link, it appears that the issue is fixed in "6.5.0-1020-oem in ppa2"

How do I install the kernel "6.5.0-1020-oem in ppa2"?

[MultipleMessagers]

NVM. I figured that the following commands can install 1020-oem.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/ppa2
sudo apt install linux-oem-22.04d

After the install, the WiFi works fine. It still has the following error in dmesg but it seems not affecting the function.

[  124.267513] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: WRT: Invalid buffer destination

[5urg3]

Congrats. I will tell you this is the last time I ever early adopt a wifi adapter. It’s been nothing but problems, lol.

[MultipleMessagers]

@5urg3 That is true. I hope it is my last time too.

For people who comes to this post through searching, here are the full steps to get BE200 working in Ubuntu:

Step 1. create a file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-jammy-proposed.list with the content:

# /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-jammy-proposed.list
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-proposed restricted main multiverse universe

Step 2. issue the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/ppa2
sudo apt update

sudo apt install linux-oem-22.04d
sudo apt install linux-firmware/jammy-proposed

Step 3. restart and boot into the kernal 1020-oem