WiFi drivers during debian installation?

I have used Ubuntu (as a liveCd and partition) on my Dell XPS M1330, and the wireless works without needing to config anything (Intel Wireless 4965)

I'm now trying to install Debian (latest stable version)....

1st time i've tried: ethernet works... wifi doesn't... tried to install iwlwifi, the network manager (and ifconfig) sees wlan0 and the right Mac address, but cannot find any wireless networks (my laptop has the wifi indicator... the indicator is on when the network manager is trying to find a wireless network, but not)

2nd time: put in the debian dvd... install, yes, yes... network: it says that it needs the iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode.... i have it on my USB (i think it's formatted in FAT32...), click yes on the 'search on other mediums'... the installation doesn't give any indicator that the driver is loaded... then tried to find wireless networks... failed

any suggestions?

 

Copy the iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode file to /lib/firmware/<kernel name> and you should be good to go. Reboot or modprobe -r the driver after copying the file. I use Ubuntu and not Debian, so I'm not 100% sure if that's where things go, or how USB stick mounting works by default, so I can't give you any canned commands.

 

i decided to reinstall debian to get a fresh installation.

so after installation, i did

aptitude install firmware-iwlwifi

modprobe iwl4965

the network manager sees my LED, but cannot detect any wireless networks... same problem

 

Why do you need that ucode? I thought you only need it for Intel wireless 5xxx devices.

Did you do this:

Code:

apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi

I found straight Debian to be rather poor with wireless. I do think you need to ensure that the required non-free repo is included and available to get that firmware.

You should be able to scan or pick up the card afterwards but then I think there's a lot of 'shoulds.' each time you try to configure wireless in linux.

 

Perhaps, run the commands (as root/ su) to obtain additional info?

iwconfig etc.

 

Install via wired and then go back and install the wifi drivers? Although, Intel supposedly provides those drivers out of the box. Just google 'Debian' and 'intel 4965' and see what you get.

 

Why on Earth is the necessary wireless software not included on the netinst disk?

 

hi,
what's output of
dmesg | grep -i iwl
?
perhaps you need newer microcode - download
http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?n=Downloads

and put that file as said in /lib/firmware

I use the 4965 on my centos and i use this file : iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode

root@orionis firmware]# dmesg | grep -i iwl
iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27kds
iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2009 Intel Corporation
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN REV=0x4
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 19 802.11a channels
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: irq 31 for MSI/MSI-X
phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 228.57.2.23
Registered led device: iwl-phy0::radio
Registered led device: iwl-phy0::assoc
Registered led device: iwl-phy0::RX
Registered led device: iwl-phy0::TX
[root@orionis firmware]# pwd

[root@orionis firmware]# ls -al /lib/firmware | grep -i iwl
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 187608 Jul 2 2008 iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 187764 Mar 26 2009 iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2109 Mar 26 2009 LICENSE.iwlwifi-4965-ucode
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5083 Mar 26 2009 README.iwlwifi-4965-ucode
[root@orionis firmware]#

 

Debian Stable is really behind the curve on firmware and doesn't even seem to be targeted at the end user, rather for distro developers....I know better than that, but a little disgusted with that particular situation that I have to have the ucode on hand or run a cable to get wireless up....sorry, but that's lame Otherwise I'd probably use it...but won't.... OpenSUSE is the king of KDE anyway....LOL

 

I been using debian for 2 yrs on my ntb and home server. But as you say, stable has too old things and unstable and testing proved not to be reliable enough for me and i started to be tired of bugfixing. This being said its great for learning new things.
Nowadays i just use CentOS (desktops) or RHEL (servers with paid support) and i gotta say i enjoy the reliability and well-thought out administering command line tools. Debian had advance x RHEL for years because of apt but now when finally RHEL has yum, i'm happy.

btw i know it was already posted here somewhere, but can't help myself, but gotta post this link again:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Debian

For those who haven't seen this yet, read the part 'debian irc support' it's hillarious! ))

 

ugh... my experience with wireless on my Debian install prompted me to uninstall it. I just didn't have the time to try and figure out what was wrong with it. I had the same symptoms as the OP did. The wireless was working but it wouldn't connect! I went to the forums and asked for suggestions but in the end it just didn't work out. I'll give it another shot sometime in the future tho.

 

Probably have the wrong firmware installed. Need it from backports.

http://wiki.debian.org/iwlagn

Code:

aptitude -t lenny-backports install firmware-iwlwifi