{
 "id": 69762,
 "slug": "debian-installer-asking-for-non-free-wifi-drivers",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/debian-installer-asking-for-non-free-wifi-drivers/",
 "language": "en",
 "title": "Debian installer asking for non-free WiFi drivers",
 "subtitle": "A WiFi chip without a free driver, and three ways around it.",
 "summary": "When I installed Debian on a laptop in 2018, its WiFi chip had no free software driver, so the installer stopped and asked for non-free firmware. A USB WiFi adapter with free drivers got me past it.",
 "topics": [
  "Amsterdam",
  "Circulair",
  "Durable",
  "Freedom",
  "budget",
  "environment",
  "hacking",
  "howto",
  "laptop",
  "linux",
  "networking",
  "people",
  "repair",
  "volunteer"
 ],
 "date": "2018-07-20",
 "published": "2018-07-20T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-08-30T07:13:24.799000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-08-30T07:16:50.020000+02:00",
 "full_article_url": "https://willem.com/en/2018-07-20_helping-people-with-free-software/",
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "note": "A short distillation of a longer willem.com post. Not currently published on willem.com itself.",
 "answers_question": "Why does the Debian installer ask for non-free WiFi drivers and how do you get past it?",
 "text": "Hardware vendors often keep the inner workings of their chips to themselves, which makes it hard to write free drivers. Debian ships free software and keeps working vendor drivers in a separate non-free repository. When the installer meets a WiFi chip without a free driver, it prompts for non-free firmware and cannot finish, because it needs the network to download additional installation files.\nThree ways around it: plug in a USB WiFi adapter that has free drivers (I used an Alfa One, not fast, but it pretty much always works), use a wired ethernet connection, or put the correct non-free drivers on the installation medium itself.\nOnce the fresh installation booted, I installed the laptop's own WiFi drivers with a few terminal commands. The Debian wiki has instructions for this.",
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/debian-installer-asking-for-non-free-wifi-drivers/snippet.md"
}