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Re: Wireless Controller Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG in a Dell Inspiron 9300



Lisi Reisz wrote:
> I am having trouble with a Wireless Controller Intel PRO/Wireless 
> 2200BG in a Dell Inspiron 9300 running a freshly installed Wheezy.  
> It is not successfully creating a wireless connection.

Is the wifi access point you are trying to connect to a hidden network?

If so then as far as I know wicd won't automatically connect to it.
In the case of a hidden network you click on "Network", "Find a hidden
network", "Hidden Network ESSID" and then enter the hidden name.  And
as far as I know this must be done each and every time to connect to
hidden networks.  Fortunately hidden networks are rare because it is
questionable if they add any security, they might even reduce
security, and so these are only rarely used these days.

> lsmod reveals that the module ipw2200 is there.

The ipw2200 is used on a lot of ThinkPads and it was on my previous
one.  It works very well.  But I would sometimes, rarely, need to
unload the module and reload it again or it would not connect.  I
don't know if this is what you are seeing but it is possible.
Reloading it is safe (quicker than rebooting) and won't hurt.  It
causes a full device reset and initialization.

  # rmmod ipw2200 ; sleep 1; modprobe ipw2200

> I use an access list for wireless appliances on my router, and the 
> correct MAC code for the laptop in question is there.  (I just 
> checked!)  Ifconfig -a finds the card.

Since this was working, and you have the manual connection working, I
assume that the mac access list isn't the problem.

> I have googled, with a singular lack of success.  I have installled a 
> backported kernel.  Nada.  Though, of course, with this card one 
> might expect an older kernel to be what is needed.  Would it be a 
> good idea to find and install an _old_ kernel?

If you install a backported kernel it is a good idea to upgrade the
firmware from the same vintage.  Which is probably newer.  For
firmware blobs newer is almost always better and also ok with older
kernels.  Usually.

> I had this card working in Squeeze, without, so far as I can remember, 
> problems.

The first thing I would try would be to unload and reload the ipw2200
module as described above and then try to connect using wicd again.

I see that you are using an unencrypted network connection.  I
strongly recommend setting up WPA2.  And then unhide the network.

I am pretty confident the problem is the hidden network.  I don't know
if this is a new problem in Wheezy's wicd because I never use hidden
networks but I do know that wicd in Wheezy seems to need to be
manually connected each time to a hidden network.

Bob

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