NixOS as a daily driver or Zero to Nixty, part 9/? - Enabling Wi-Fi

Published July 27, 2025

2 min read

I recently got a new Framework 16 (thanks Discourse!). In the previous post, we talked about encrypting the machine and refactoring our config into a modular layout. You can read about that and more in the NixOS As A Daily Driver series.

Today I will be showing how I got Wi-Fi working because it did not work on NixOS by default. The Framework 16 ships with an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi module.

The Symptoms

nmcli device status shows my wlp2s0 as "DOWN"
ip link set wlp2s0 up was not effective
nmtui would show SSIDs but refused to connect

Steps To Fix

Load the Intel driver

The AX210 needs the iwlwifi kernel module and firmware:

boot.kernelModules = [ "iwlwifi" ];
hardware.enableRedistributableFirmware = true;

This ensures the driver is in my init-ramfs and the firmware is present.

Explicitly define Wi-Fi backend

networking.networkmanager.enable = true;
networking.networkmanager.wifi.backend = "wpa_supplicant";

Full Minimal Config Snippet

All in all, this is what I added:

# Load the Intel AX210 driver and firmware
boot.kernelModules               = [ "iwlwifi" ];
hardware.enableRedistributableFirmware = true;

# Enable the wireless module and NM
networking.networkmanager.enable = true;
networking.networkmanager.wifi.backend = "wpa_supplicant";

Rebuild & Reboot

Make sure all the new config will take hold by rebuilding and rebooting.

sudo nixos-rebuild switch
sudo reboot now

You can confirm everything worked by running: nmcli device status | grep wlp2s0

Victory!

After rebooting, my iwlwifi driver loaded, wlp2s0 came up, and nmtui was able to both see and connect to the SSIDs.