Any Debian Experimental users available?
Any Experimental users who can tell me what the kernel numbers mean in
the Experimental repository? I see flaws in the kernels 3.4, and 3.5,
and wonder if other people see them too, or if they even care to
report problems because those kernels are, well, Experimental. I'm
running a system with Debian Wheezy packages, and then picking and
choosing particular pieces from Experimental (or sid, if they get to
sid when I need them).
I've got a Dell laptop with Intel Centrino Ultimate 6300 wireless. It
usually can't connect to any wireless access points using Wheezy
software, but with the wpa_supplicant-1.0 from Experimental and the
kernel linux-image-3.4 from Experimental, I find I'm mostly able to
connect. With wpa_supplicant-1.0, I can join most APs, even the
"enterprise wireless" zones at my university where there are 50
wireless routers in a single work area. That was a major improvement.
IN case you have not seen this problem, there are plenty of bug
reports about it, eg:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/wpasupplicant/+bug/872578
After a month of testing, I'm pretty confident that wpasupplicant
1.0-2 and kernels 3.4 or above are a good fix.
However, I find that the kernels from experimental, whether 3.4, 3.5,
or 3.6, have bad side effects. Most importantly, cpufrequency scaling
just does not work. The symptom is that the cpufreq-info shows that
the maximum and minimum speeds are 800mhz and the CPUs stay locked
there. There's plenty of bug reports on that part too. With kernel
3.5, sometimes I even get the start time error that the cpufreq
service can't start, I've not gotten a clear explanation on that.
I can reboot to the kernel from Debian testing (3.2.0-4-amd64) and
frequency scaling works, and I can join many networks, but not all.
Today, I can't join an AP in a restaurant, I see this same old error
in dmesg
[41104.570886] wlan0: authenticate with 0a:90:7f:90:00:8a (try 1)
[41104.577146] wlan0: authenticated
[41104.577568] wlan0: failed to insert Dummy STA entry for the AP (error -17)
[41116.599121] wlan0: deauthenticating from 0a:90:7f:90:00:8a by local
choice (reason=2)
[41116.650256] wlan0: authenticate with 0a:90:7f:90:00:8a (try 1)
[41116.656215] wlan0: authenticated
[41116.656623] wlan0: failed to insert Dummy STA entry for the AP (error -17)
[41119.772044] wlan0: deauthenticating from 0a:90:7f:90:00:8a by local
choice (reason=2)
[41119.821261] wlan0: authenticate with 0a:90:7f:90:00:8a (try 1)
[41119.827506] wlan0: authenticated
[41119.827842] wlan0: failed to insert Dummy STA entry for the AP (error -17)
That only occurs with kernels in the 3.2 range. So, which poison do I
want. No wireless connection, or no cpu frequency scaling?
I don't know enough about the ways and customs of Debian Experimental
to know if somebody is trying to fix kernel 3.4, or 3.5, or whether
those changes eventually go to Debian sid, or to Wheezy.
When I saw that Wheezy is staying with kernels in the 3.2 range, my
first thought was "that's awfully conservative, the Fedora folks are
pushing out 3.6". However, I understand the conservatism if vitals
like frequency scaling are sacrificed to be on the cutting edge.
pj
--
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science Assoc. Director
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 Center for Research Methods
University of Kansas University of Kansas
http://pj.freefaculty.org http://quant.ku.edu
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