Bug#663650: cdrom: problems with wireless on a Dell L502 XPS Laptop.
Package: cdrom
Severity: important
I have installed both Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) and 5.0(Lenny). In both
cases, the install "seemed" to go okay, and I was able to boot the
resulting system from a partition on my hard drive. I am able to
connect to the internet on the current system, but only through a LAN
cable; the wireless will not configure. I know all my hardware is
working
connectly, because if the same machine has booted Windows 7, wireless
interconnectivity is no problem at the same location.
When I installed the current 5.x system, the cable-interconnect was up,
so needed packages could be downloaded.
Not wishing to file a bug report until I was certain, I first perused
the AMD64 install manual, and founnd the Dell L501 listed as needing
package firmware-iwlwifi to be instlled.So I then went to the "Loading
Missing Firmware" section, which I gound to be useless.
Finally, I was able to load a file entitled Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 and
WiFi Link 4965 devices, which appeared to have instructions for loading
firmware update code.
I followed the instruction EXACTLY:
to /etc/apt/sources.list, I added:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main cont
Then I executed the command:
aptitude update && aptitude install firmware-iwlwifi
Then I executed the command iwconfig
Are received a "not supported" response.
>From the messages that scrolled by, it looks like the "aptitude
update.." step went okay. I DID notice that your examples were
truncated in your documentation ("main cont" was printed as "main con"
and "firmware-iwlwifi" printed as "firmware-iwlwi". This was the main
"bug" because it cost me a lot of useless wasted time, but even after
everything seemed to work, I did not achieve a working wireless laptop
(at least in Debian).
Could you have someone who knows something advise me ? It's inexcusable
that such a common need as getting wireless to work an a Dell/Intel
laptop is such a painful journey.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
James S. Koford
(408) 499-4611
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.9
APT prefers oldstable
APT policy: (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
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