Wireless/device configuration for a dell precision 3240

Help
1

Hello community,

I’m trying to setup a dell precision 3240 that hasn’t yet an hardware configuration. My problem here is that I don’t see the wireless devices.

Here is the specification of the computer.

I’m using the network manager:

  networking.useDHCP = false;
  networking.interfaces.eno1.useDHCP = true;
  networking.networkmanager.enable = true;

  hardware.bluetooth.enable = true;

I don’t find any other interface, despite I found the wireless devices enabled in the BIOS setup.

I guess the problem come from the auto generated hardware-configuration.nix:

# Do not modify this file!  It was generated by ‘nixos-generate-config’
# and may be overwritten by future invocations.  Please make changes
# to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix instead.
{ config, lib, pkgs, modulesPath, ... }:

{
  imports =
    [ (modulesPath + "/installer/scan/not-detected.nix")
    ];

  boot.initrd.availableKernelModules = [ "xhci_pci" "ahci" "nvme" "usbhid" "usb_storage" "sd_mod" ];
  boot.initrd.kernelModules = [ ];
  boot.kernelModules = [ "kvm-intel" ];
  boot.extraModulePackages = [ ];

  fileSystems."/" =
    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/52a07cbb-6c03-451f-945d-dd7a619b8330";
      fsType = "ext4";
    };

  fileSystems."/boot" =
    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/8697-D8FC";
      fsType = "vfat";
    };

  swapDevices =
    [ { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/9c34787f-b091-4db0-8f71-eaa1cf730b00"; }
    ];

  powerManagement.cpuFreqGovernor = lib.mkDefault "powersave";
  hardware.cpu.intel.updateMicrocode = lib.mkDefault config.hardware.enableRedistributableFirmware;
  # high-resolution display
  hardware.video.hidpi.enable = lib.mkDefault true;
}

Should I try to reinstall from scratch?

2

Which WiFi device do you actually have? The Qualcom or the Intel?

For the Intel one usually using iwlwifi should do. The QCom might be more complex to get to work.

Please check which driver has been loaded and used in the installer and then try to activate that one in your config as well, you might need to add additional packages in case of the QCom and even allow (some) unfree packages.

Another alternative to see what WiFi you are using is to run lsusb and lspci to check the devices avaible.

Neither of these is available by default, you need to enable some way to connect to the internet to get them installed (ephemeraly).

3

Hi,

I’m so sorry, I’m having a big doubt on what is on the computer, the BIOS act exactly as if I had a wireless card. The wireless is enabled for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but the dell service signal me the presence of the non-presence of a wireless device. (not my computer, initially)

In my mistake, I learned a lot with your comment, by the way! :sweat_smile:

Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience! :pray:

4

So have you checked the output of lspci and lsusb? Is there any meaningful device listed?

Have you also checked while booted into the installation ISO (which has working WiFi if I understood correctly?) if and which kernel modules are loaded using lsmod?

The Qualcom ones seem to be prefixed with ath.

5

Yes I checked both, the lscpi:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9b43 (rev 05)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CometLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] (rev 05)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th/8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Thermal Controller
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Shared SRAM
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake HECI Controller
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake SATA AHCI Controller
00:1b.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCI Express Root Port #17 (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 0697
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH cAVS
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SPI Controller
00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (11) I219-LM
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Black SN750 / PC SN730 NVMe SSD

And the lsusb:

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0bda:8153 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 2109:0817 VIA Labs, Inc. USB3.0 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 2188:0ae1 No brand USB OPTICAL MOUSE
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2109:2817 VIA Labs, Inc. USB2.0 Hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c52e Logitech, Inc. MK260 Wireless Combo Receiver
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0951:16a4 Kingston Technology HyperX 7.1 Audio
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

I don’t see anything wireless apart the keyboard input. I have set up NixOS with an ethernet connection. Likewise, I wasn’t sure if the computer had a wireless device, to be precise, I checked first in the BIOS settings and there is a wireless section with everything enabled. :thinking: So I guessed that it was something. And actually, I thought it was weird to not command any wireless devices…

After looking at the results of both commands, my doubt leveled up, and I finally checked my components with the Express Service Code. (I should have done that before :confused:)