Wifi Killer AX1650 on Debian (Linux >= 5.4)

 · Jean Schurger
Table of contents

I'm running Debian Sid on an Dell XPS 9300 (I would be happy with Buster but just upgrading to Sid was a fast way to have X or Wayland working).

That laptop embed an AX1650 Killer Wifi interface.

Warning, false hope ahead

There is a guide the the Killer's website here, but it does NOT works properly with the Linux 5.4 installed with Debian Sid at this time.

As mentionned, the guide /Newer Linux Kernels like 5.4+ might have bugs and compatibility issues, so if you see issues using them, try downgrading to 5.3/.

Even if the guide steps run smoothly, here is issue. Wifi will be working, connecting to AP, great pings, but somehow, TLS/SSL traffic will block most of the time (HTTPS, SSH, …).

[SOLVED] Running stock Debian kernel modules

Do NOT install backport-iwlwifi. The modules installed in the package linux-image-5.4.0-4-amd64 are perfectly fine. But they require firmware files version > 49.

Those files are available in the following GIT repositoty: [[https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/linux-firmware][]]https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/linux-firmware

But there is little difference between the filename the driver will try to load and the filename in the repository.

I had to rename 'iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-50.ucode' to 'iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-50.ucode'. a