Mayuresh,
On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 3:31 PM Mayuresh Kathe mayuresh@kathe.in wrote:
i ended up running ubuntu 18.04.
the last line of `lspci` gives the following; 05:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 31)
i guess i was wrong, it isn't a r8169.
The firmware-atheros non-free package (https://packages.debian.org/stretch/firmware-atheros) should contain the drivers/blobs needed for your Wi-Fi adapter. If you have network connectivity, you can just enable the non-free section and install the package.
The default Debian ISO doesn't ship with non-free firmware/driver blobs any more. But there are unofficial ISO images provided by the project which contain those built-in. See https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware.... So you can also use these ISO images.
Thanks & Regards, Guruprasad