Bug#663650: cdrom: problems with wireless on a Dell L502 XPS Laptop.
Hi James,
On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 04:56:59PM -0700, James Koford wrote:
>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
Truncated example text will be problematic, yes. I've just done a
quick search for the truncated examples and I can't find them to know
where to fix; can you give me pointers please?
>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.
It *should* be as simple as install the appropriate firmware package
so that the kernel can find it when the driver is loaded.
firmware-iwlwifi works fine for me here on a Thinkpad with no
hassle. The firmware packages are in the non-free section of the
Debian archive, so you'll need to set up your sources.list with:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free
As Lenny is no longer security-supported, I'd recommend switching to
Squeeze instead. If you've only just installed your laptop, then
re-installing from scratch with Squeeze will probable be much quicker
than upgrading from Lenny.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
"I suspect most samba developers are already technically insane... Of
course, since many of them are Australians, you can't tell." -- Linus Torvalds
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