AR9271 WiFi no longer working in Tails 4.9

Hi everyone, downloaded the Tails 4.9 image today from the wikimedia mirror that was posted in the tails-dev chat. Signature check ok. I assumed that to be the final image that will be released soon.

It seems that in Tails 4.9 AR9271-based WiFi sticks are no longer working. They appear in the lsusb device list, but do not appear as an additional WiFi device in GNOME's network manager. The situation was identical on three different laptops.

In Tails 4.8, everything is working as expected, on the same machines. The AR9271 stick is recognized immediately and appears as an additional WiFi device. So there is a possible regression going from 4.8 -> 4.9.

I know that at this point Tails 4.9 is not out yet, and I might have tested this not using the final image. But it seems like a fairly serious problem that might affect many people, so I think reporting this now the right thing to do.