Bug#631289: closed by Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> (Re: Bug#631289: iwlagn: Kernel 2.6.39-2-amd64 in Debian Testing causes Lenovo X201 and T500 wifi to crash Netgear DGN3500 ADSL router/Wifi access point)

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi Russel,

Russel Winder wrote:

> A friend has suggested the problem lies in allowing 802.11n and that I
> should retry using only 802.11g which I shall do to gain more data and
> report back so that there is a record in case someone actually is
> interested in fixing this "new feature" (as apparently it is not a
> bug :-) in Debian's 2.6.39 kernel. 

It's possible there's a kernel bug nearby, but the symptom would have
to be something other than crashing a router. :)  If this were some
router firmware packaged for Debian, then we'd assign it to that
package and track it that way.  As it is, please feel free to ask
questions on linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org if you get to a point where
the kernel's behavior is mysterious and think that could help tracking
this down.

Another useful tool is "git bisect", which you might want to try in
order to find out what kernel behavior change triggered this.

Anyway, whoever debugs this will have to understand what the router
does.  And looking at and modifying the source is a whole lot more
pleasant than reverse-engineering, so that will probably be someone on
Netgear's end.  Perhaps after investigation they will be able to say
if there is an easy workaround on the kernel side.

Sorry for the trouble.