rtw880: could not load firmware image 'rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin'

[Commander Garble]

During install of FreeBSD to a c.2019 HP 17-by1xxx (probably 17-by1061st) laptop, the installer failed to configure a wireless connection. On boot, I get 12 repetitions of

rtw880: <rtw88> port 0x3000-0x30ff mem 0xa1100000-0xa110ffff at device 0.0 on pci3
rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin either
rtw8821c_fw.bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin either
rtw88_rtw8821c_fw.bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin either (x3)
rtw880: could not load firmware image 'rtw88/rtw8821c_fw.bin'
rtw880: failed to request firmware
rtw880: failed to load firmware
rtw880: failed to setup chip efuse info
rtw880: failed to setup chip information
device_attach: rtw880 attach returned 22

I thought I would need to download and install a firmware package. However, kldstat does show an if_rtw88.ko (and if_re.ko) loaded. I don't know the difference between any of these or what exactly the problem is but, when trying to cargo-cult the networking thing in the handbook, I get 'no interface configured' or something like that - I can try it again if specifics are needed. (It's very confusing, as all my searches turn up people talking about FreeBSD not even supporting 802.11ac (which makes it hard to get enthusiastic about trying to troubleshoot it) or maybe it does and maybe install this module or override the default driver or try the experimental one or maybe it's not that at all and it's just misconfigured and so on and all I want is to have a net connection so I can install more than what comes with FreeBSD-15.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.xz and get to work. After years of just using my old Slack and being totally uninvolved with new things or the free software world, in the past month or so I've gotten a new desktop running Slackware-current along with its Windows 11 and gotten the old laptop triple-booting the same along with FreeBSD (during the holidays with my usual impeccable timing) and, while it started out as fun and a blast from the past, I'm just kind of burnt out at this point.)

Also, a totally unrelated problem but maybe can be solved in a line on the side, the console will not blank and neither 'vidcontrol -t' nor adding 'timeout=foo' (or whatever the line was) to rc.conf has any effect. Nor kldload'ing something else, but I forget what. That would be nice, too, as it's ridiculous to reboot just to blank the screen.

 

[T-Daemon]

kldstat does show an if_rtw88.ko (and if_re.ko) loaded.

Those are device driver kernel modules provided by FreeBSD, but the rtw88(4) firmware is not included, it must be installed from package:

DESCRIPTION
     The rtw88 driver is derived from Realtek's Linux rtw88 driver.

     This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work.  The
     package wifi-firmware-rtw88-kmod from the
     ports/net/wifi-firmware-rtw88-kmod port needs to be installed before the
     driver is loaded.  Otherwise no wlan(4) interface can be created using
     ifconfig(8).  One can use fwget(8) to install the correct firmware
     package.

If no internet connection is possible to the machine (e.g. over ethernet), you can use a smartphone's USB tether function to create a connection to download the firmware package.