Installing linux-firmware W/O a Working NIC

[David L. Craig]

I'm a newb for Qubes OS, Xen, Fedora, not to mention avoiding
systemd like the plague, so this is probably simple for someone.
I've installed Qubes 3.2 without problem except neither of the
RTL8111/8168/8144 NICs come up. All r8169 references in the
[dom0]/var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-net.log for enp0s0 and enp0s1
indicate the links are down or not ready. I read in the User's FAQ
under the "Why does my network adaptor not work?" question that
linux-firmware probably needs to be installed in the sys-net's
templatevm (using "sudo yum"--is not an update to use dnf indicated?)
but "sudo dnf install linux-firmware" produces a nastygram ("Error:
failed to synchronize cache for repo 'fedora'") that seems to
indicate there may be a chicken and egg situation afoot. Any
suggestions before I attempt to import files from a /lib/firmware
somewhere via a USB-stick?
--
<not cent from sell>
May the LORD God bless you exceedingly abundantly!

Dave_Craig______________________________________________
"So the universe is not quite as you thought it was.
You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then.
Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe."
__--from_Nightfall_by_Asimov/Silverberg_________________

[cooloutac]

try sudo qubes-dom0-update isntead. https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/software-update-dom0/

[Unman]

On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 02:48:16AM +0000, David L. Craig wrote:
> I'm a newb for Qubes OS, Xen, Fedora, not to mention avoiding
> systemd like the plague, so this is probably simple for someone.
> I've installed Qubes 3.2 without problem except neither of the
> RTL8111/8168/8144 NICs come up. All r8169 references in the
> [dom0]/var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-net.log for enp0s0 and enp0s1
> indicate the links are down or not ready. I read in the User's FAQ
> under the "Why does my network adaptor not work?" question that
> linux-firmware probably needs to be installed in the sys-net's
> templatevm (using "sudo yum"--is not an update to use dnf indicated?)
> but "sudo dnf install linux-firmware" produces a nastygram ("Error:
> failed to synchronize cache for repo 'fedora'") that seems to
> indicate there may be a chicken and egg situation afoot. Any
> suggestions before I attempt to import files from a /lib/firmware
> somewhere via a USB-stick?

Hello David,

Welcome to Qubes.

yum is retained as placeholder for dnf in later versions, so that old
instructions will continue to work. (I assume Fedora will remove this at
some point.)

You are indeed in a chicken and egg situation. The best you can do is
download the files on another machine, or using a live distro, and then
import them as you suggest. If you have a sys-net and have
assigned the network device to sys-net you will have to install the
firmware in the template used by sys-net.

unman

[blacklight]

another option could be to download the drivers on another machine, putting them onto a usb drive, and then installing them on your qubes installtion.

[David L. Craig]

On 17May18:1949+0100, Unman wrote:

> On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 02:48:16AM +0000, David L. Craig wrote:

> > I'm a newb for Qubes OS, Xen, Fedora, not to mention avoiding
> > systemd like the plague, so this is probably simple for someone.
> > I've installed Qubes 3.2 without problem except neither of the
> > RTL8111/8168/8144 NICs come up. All r8169 references in the
> > [dom0]/var/log/xen/console/guest-sys-net.log for enp0s0 and enp0s1
> > indicate the links are down or not ready. I read in the User's FAQ
> > under the "Why does my network adaptor not work?" question that
> > linux-firmware probably needs to be installed in the sys-net's
> > templatevm (using "sudo yum"--is not an update to use dnf indicated?)
> > but "sudo dnf install linux-firmware" produces a nastygram ("Error:
> > failed to synchronize cache for repo 'fedora'") that seems to
> > indicate there may be a chicken and egg situation afoot. Any
> > suggestions before I attempt to import files from a /lib/firmware
> > somewhere via a USB-stick?
>
> Hello David,
>
> Welcome to Qubes.

Thank you. I hope this is the beginning of a lengthy mutually beneficial
relationship.

> yum is retained as placeholder for dnf in later versions, so that old
> instructions will continue to work. (I assume Fedora will remove this at
> some point.)

That makes sense.

> You are indeed in a chicken and egg situation. The best you can do is
> download the files on another machine, or using a live distro, and then
> import them as you suggest. If you have a sys-net and have
> assigned the network device to sys-net you will have to install the
> firmware in the template used by sys-net.
>
> unman

I tried that and it didn't change anything. Then I theorized the
installation must include the firmware, so I decided to reinstall
onto a 64GB USB3 stick and see if the blobs were in sys-net's
/lib/firmware/rtl_nic. They were and the NICs still do not come up.
I took a cellphone camera shot of the sys-net log but still need to
OCR process it and get the results to my emailing infrastructure.
Qubes isn't my highest priority right now, unfortunately. But at
least we now know this isn't a chicken/egg problem after all.
Something else is going on...

Possibly related, the USB-stick install's customization phase failed
configuring TemplateVM fedora-23 due to the qrexec daemon failing to
start after 60 seconds (different problem I'll need to officially
report soon--I got a picture of the screen for that, too).