After the upgrade, Wi‑Fi stopped working: sysctl net.wlan.devices was empty, iwm0 was present in dmesg but with repeated:
iwm7265Dfw: could not load firmware image, error 2 device_attach: iwm0 attach returned 6
I had no iwm*fw modules present in /boot/kernel or /boot/modules.
Environment:
ghostbsd-version = 26.1‑R15.0p2 uname -a = FreeBSD vivi-t450 15.0-RELEASE-p2 FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p2 n230752-16dcabacd5f2 GENERIC amd64 - Laptop: ThinkPad T450
- Wi‑Fi: Intel Dual Band Wireless‑AC 7265
pciconf -lv:
iwlwifi0@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x028000 rev=0x99 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x095b subvendor=0x8086 subdevice=0x5210
vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
device = 'Wireless 7265'
class = network
I followed older iwm documentation (I was not aware of the newer iwlwifi changes, even after reading the FreeBSD and GhostBSD changelogs) and added this to /boot/loader.conf:
if_iwm_load="YES"
iwm7265Dfw_load="YES"
On the next boot, the 15.0 BE kernel panicked very early; I could not reach single‑user. Even unsetting variables at the loader prompt did not help. I had to boot a live ISO, import zroot, mount the BE root manually, and remove the if_iwm_load / iwm7265Dfw_load lines from /boot/loader.conf to recover.
Instead of using iwm, I then unloaded both if_iwm and if_iwlwifi, and loaded only if_iwlwifi:
kldunload if_iwlwifi 2>/dev/null
kldunload if_iwm 2>/dev/null
kldload if_iwlwifi
dmesg then showed iwlwifi0 successfully loading iwlwifi-7265D-29.ucode, and sysctl net.wlan.devices reported iwlwifi0. I created and brought up wlan0 from iwlwifi0 and got online:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev iwlwifi0
ifconfig wlan0 up
service wpa_supplicant start wlan0
dhclient wlan0
Permanent config in /etc/rc.conf now:
kld_list="linux linux64 cuse fusefs hgame /boot/modules/i915kms.ko if_iwlwifi"
wlans_iwlwifi0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
create_args_wlan0="country AT regdomain etsi"
There are no iwm lines left in rc.conf or any /boot/loader.conf*. System boots cleanly and Wi‑Fi works via iwlwifi.
I am attaching kernel panic photos here:
Questions:
- Is it expected/normal that adding the old
iwm loader lines on a 15.0‑based system can cause a kernel panic when firmware is missing or reorganized into raw files?
- If this is not expected, should I open a bug for GhostBSD (and/or upstream FreeBSD) so that:
iwm failure to load firmware does not panic the kernel; and/or- GhostBSD tooling discourages
if_iwm_load / iwm*fw_load on 15.x where iwlwifi is preferred for Intel 7265?
