Redirecting back to the list again. Haines, is there a specific reason
why you keep replying to me directly? Someone on the list following
the discussion may have other ideas, or notice something I miss. Also,
time constraints prevent me from being your personal tech support.


On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 08:10:31AM -0500, Haines Brown wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 02:35:33PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> > Redirecting back to the list.
>
> ...
>
> > > > Try installing the wireless-regdb package. You may also need to enable
> > > > the non-free sources, and install firmware-linux-nonfree.
> > > >
> > > > Greg
> > >
> > > Greg, thanks for the feedback, but if I can't boot, how do I
> > > install applications or edit /etc/apt/sourceslist?
> >
> > Your original post didn't indicate that you can't boot. The output you
> > posted seems to indicate your newly installed system came up fine, and
> > just the wireless card didn't work. If you in fact have a newly
> > installed system that won't boot, then a not functioning wireless card
> > is the least of your problems (if it even is one). In this case, it
> > might be easiest to do the install again.
>
> Sorry for the omission. The broken system boots to the error message.
> I send this message to the list from another machine.,

As I recall, the error message was about the system not being able to
load what it needed for the wireless card, specifically
regulatory.db. The rest of the system should boot as normal given the
messages you sent earlier.

>
> > > Can it be done
> > > with a Devuan Live? I have a devuan live key and run sy - to get
> > > a root termnial.
> >
> > It likely can be done with devuan live, and I'm sure you type su, not sy.
>
> Sorry as well for the typo, At 90 I've lost my ability to type.
>
> With DevuanLive I can open a terminal and get a # prompt. In the
> directory I see the file: remove_firmware.sh. I look at it and it
> removes all firmware packages. Included is firmware-iwlwifi. The
> bane of thats package appears in the error I get when I try to
> boot the drive. The file also has the command apt-get autoremove
> --purge ${FIRMWARE_PKGS}
>

Like I said before, that seems to remove non-free firmware for those
who don't want it.

> I create a mount point in that directory and try to to mount
> /dev/nvme0n1 on it. The mount fails becayse it cannot find a
> valid ext4 file system. When I ty to install firmware-iwlwifi
> it says already installed in newest version.

I would have to see the partition list of /dev/nvme0 to see what is in
the first partition, and what other partitions you have. What does

lsblk -fs /dev/nvme0

show?

>
> > I'm confused. You said above you can't boot, but you just said that
> > you have a running system. Therefore, given the output you posted in
> > your previous post, and that you have just said you have a running
> > system, I will assume you do in fact have a running system. In that
> > case, installing firmware-linux-nonfree should fix your wireless
> > errors you posted previously. You will need to use an Ethernet cable
> > to do the package install, a cellular hotspot if possible, or another
> > computer with internet access to download firmware-linux-nonfree to a
> > flash drive which you can install from on your running system.
>
> I have two systems. One broken and another is OK. I have the
> broken system connected via ethernet, At a DevuanLive terminal, I
> can mount the broken drive. I went to install
> firmware-linux-nonfree and I am told it is already installed at
> newest version.

I'm again confused. You said above you can't mount /dev/nvme0n1
because there is no ext4 file system. Now you seem to be saying you
can mount the drive with your installed system. Also, mounting a drive
in a lie environment isn't enough, you need to chroot into that system
to operate on it. Chrooting is an advanced topic. If you're not
familiar with operating inside a chroot system to fix it, I would
suggest you use the repair mode of the devuan installer which sets the
environment for you properly to install and uninstall packages
in. Simply mounting your installed system in a live environment, and
checking for installed packages will show you what is installed in the
live environment, not in the system you just mounted.

>
> I find that on the broken system /etc/fstab has only these lines
>
> overlay / overlay rw 0 0
> tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev o o

This is correct for a live environment. I would say it seems like
you're looking at the /etc/fstab of the devuan live environment, not
your broken installation.

>
> No wonder I cannot boot! It is not the installer because I have
> same problem withn the refracta in a DevuanLive and a netinst iso
> on different key.

Those are all live environments.

>
> I find that /etc/apt/sources.list has
>
> deb https://dev.devuan.org/merged daedalus main non-free-firmware
>
> --
>

>      Haines Brown

I'm not sure what to tell you to do next, since the information you
are providing seems contradictory to me. Based on the output messages
you provided in your first post on this topic, I would say it seems
like you have a system that boots, and you should be able to login on
it natively without using a live environment. Once in that system,
installing wireless-regdb, and linux-firmware-nonfree should resolve
the error messages about the wireless card. If you can't login because
you don't see a graphical login screen, pressing ctrl+alt+f1 should
give you a text console with a login prompt. Once you login there, you
can use apt to install packages.

Greg


> --
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