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update firmware guide
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morrownr committed Jul 20, 2024
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Maintained by @morrownr

Purpose: Provide the steps to install or upgrade firmware for Mediatek or
RTW88 based USB WiFi adapters. Some Linux distros do not include the firmware
that is necessary to support USB WiFi adapters. Debian prior to Debian 12 is
a good example. Other distros make mistakes and leave the firmware out of their
distro and sometimes you may need to update the firmware. Then there are the
numerous server distros where wifi support may not be included because the
maintainers think wifi is not used in server applications. Hopefully the
following is helpful.
Purpose: Provide the steps to install or upgrade firmware for Mediatek
or RTW88 based USB WiFi adapters. Some Linux distros do not include the
firmware that is necessary to support USB WiFi adapters. Debian prior to
Debian 12 is a good example. Other distros make mistakes and leave the
firmware out of their distro and sometimes you may need to update the
firmware to a newer version. Then there are the numerous server distros
where wifi support, to include the firmware, may not be included because
the maintainers think wifi is not used in server applications.

Information: In-kernel drivers in Linux come in 2 or more parts. There
is what is normally called the driver, which is part of the kernel, and
there is the firmware (binary blob), which may be 1 or more files, and
is not part of the kernel. Firmware files are part of the distro and
have to be installed and updated by the maintainers of your distros or
by you. Some distros do not install firmware, therefore you may to need
to install the firmware yourself depending on your Linux distro. You can
check the firmware, see appropriate section, to see if firmware needs to
be installed or upgraded. Keep in mind that firmware file names do not
change so you have to compare file sizes, dates or version to determine
if you have the latest version. The symptom of a missing firmware is
that the adapter does not show up on boot... just like if there is no
driver in your kernel. To repeat, adapters that use in-kernel drivers,
to function properly, the driver (module) is required AND the firmware
is required. The absence of either will cause the adapter to not show up
on boot. All of the more popular mainstream distros have everything in
place. This includes but is not limited to current releases of Ubuntu
(and all of its puppies), Debian, Mint, fedora, Manjaro, Raspberry Pi OS
and many more.

The following sections are available:

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