Manual intervention for linux-firmware

General system Pacman & AUR helpers
1

I’m talking a friend through following the instructions here Linux-firmware >= 20250613.12fe085f-5 upgrade requires manual intervention

We carried out the first one

# pacman -Rdd linux-firmware

and the computer lost internet - ‘No network connections’
I’m speculating this might be because something linux-firmware does now doesn’t work?
But without internet # pacman -Syu linux-firmware just yields a load of errors because it obviously can’t find any servers

I’ve done this procedure on my own computer without any problems.

I understand it’s going to be quite difficult for anyone to diagnose when I don’t have access to the computer in question (my friend lives miles away, I’m doing this over the phone), but I just thought I’d reach out in case anyone else has had the same problem and there’s an easy fix.

2

Just a tought your friend might be able to connect to the internet e.g. using his mobile phone as a hotspot . If possible ofcourse.

3

Good thinking. I just tried it, but unfortunately it seems that it’s the network controller that’s down, so can’t find any available networks anywhere (not even nextdoor’s!)

It’s weird because https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_firmware says

Linux firmware is a package distributed alongside the Linux kernel that contains firmware binary blobs necessary for partial or full functionality of certain hardware devices. These binary blobs were never permitted to include in a GPL’d work, but have been permitted to redistribute under separate cover.

Typical kinds of hardware requiring firmware:

So how was

# pacman -Rdd linux-firmware
# pacman -Syu linux-firmware'

ever supposed to work if removing linux-firmware stops the wireless network?

4

It isn’t supposed to do that, did the friend reboot after the -Rdd and before the -Suy?

Or was the pacman -Syu linux-firmware done but the network card went away after the reboot, which is possible too?

5

Never tried it myself but doesn’t even tethering work ?

Also I tried the whole thing (in one go so to speak) and no problems here.

7

Not that they’ve admitted to!!
I had them read back the instructions to me before hitting enter each time, so I think a reboot was very unlikely.

I had them read back the instructions to me, and it sounded like the -Rdd was followed immediately by the -Syu

They’ve rebooted since, but to no avail.

It’s sounding like I’m going to have to get to the machine with a usb iso…

8

No, unfortunately.

9

Just as a heads up, sometimes the network card “disappears” until the new firmware is loaded, which happens after a cold boot. Tell the friend to completely shut down the computer and wait for a minute. Other people reported the same issue in a different thread after the update.

If that doesn’t work do they have access to another computer and an USB-stick?

The straight forward way would probably be you showing up, chrooting into the installation from a live install and reinstall linux-firmware.

But maybe this is doable remotely:

  • Go to https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any/linux-firmware/
  • Pick the required firmware packages in the dependencies
    • For networking probably broadcom, realtek, intel … or pick all of them.
    • Download them from the menu on the right to the USB stick
  • Move USB stick to the computer and install the packages manually with pacman -U <package>
  • Reboot, hope that network is back and then install full linux-firmware again.
10

So if you didnt clear the cache it should be there.

If nothing else is helping and you just need the package again temporarily then you could do something like;

find /var/cache/pacman/pkg -name linux-firmware*

sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-20250613.12fe085f-5-any.pkg.tar.zst

(of course using the correct path for the latest version available)

11

That’s a good idea too, roll back temporarily into the older local packages.

12

Will do. Probably tomorrow now, but I’ll give it a try

Brilliant, I hadn’t thought of that. I can’t see why that wouldn’t work, I’ll try it tomorrow.

13

And ask for a pacman -Qs linux-firmware to see what - if anything - is actually installed at the moment. That would clear up the “reboot between -Rdd/-Suy” question.

14

Will do. Thanks