Re: Intel 2100 wireless firmware (ipw2100-1.3.fw) for Lenny installation

[Mark <mamarcac@gmail.com>]

>On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Mark <mamarcac@gmail.com> wrote:
>

>I did a fresh install of Lenny and still the same problem persists.  All wireless networks are recognized, and after being prompted for my wpa key, network manager just shows 2 gray dots (neither one >turns green) and after about 30 seconds it times out.  Before anyone asks, I'm copying/pasting the wpa key from a usb drive that I use on the other laptops which connect just fine, but again they have >BCM wifi cards not this ipw2100 type.
>
>Any other ideas?
>
>Mark

Per the page here http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/README.ipw2100, it appears wpa isn't supported yet in the latest stable firmware version. *sad face*  Relevant text is posted below.  Since I did "aptitude install firmware-ipw2x00" per the Debian wiki, I assume it picked the stable firmware release which is 0.14.  Since there are newer versions for package "firmware-ipw2x00" since the stable release, and Ubuntu uses Unstable from Debian, which contains one of the newer versions, that must be why it works when I boot to a live Ubuntu 9.10 CD.  Sid uses version 0.22 according to the Debian page.  I'm not advanced enough to know what has been updated from 0.14 to 0.22 that makes it work, but the list here http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-nonfree_0.22/changelog has lots of stuff and I assume one or more of them is related to why Ubuntu can connect to WPA, and Lenny cannot.

If anything I said is wrong please correct me so I can learn!

2. Release 1.2.0 Current Supported Features
-----------------------------------------------
- Managed (BSS) and Ad-Hoc (IBSS)
- WEP (shared key and open)
- Wireless Tools support 
- 802.1x

Enabled (but not supported) features:
- Monitor/RFMon mode
- WPA/WPA2