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Re: [LUG] Debian 7 and wifi

 

On 15/06/13 18:44, Neil Winchurst wrote:
> You could be right there. My smart phone does not work with my router
> (a known problem) so I have a TPlink wireless access point linked to
> the router. My phone works with that, whereas the laptops (mine, the
> wife's and the daughter's) automatically link to the Netgear router.
> If this is causing a problem, well, it has not happened before.
>
> I could install using a cable link to the router and mess around with
> the wifi afterwards. But that is exactly what I did when installing
> Debian the first time, and I am still trying to sort out the wifi.
>
> Incidentally, that is what I did with all the laptops when setting
> them up with Xubuntu (I mean that I linked them to the router to
> install and let them find the wifi afterwards). I had no problems with
> that.
>
> Neil
>


Ah, that's definitely the problem: here I also have a TPlink wifi
repeater in the garage that connects the inverter for the solar panels
on the roof to the general network, which is running wifi from a
standard Virgin hub. There are also several more wifi networks but
they're all running from an OpenBSD box with a bunch of wifi cards in
the back and are separate. Anyway, my iPhone and most other iDevices
which come around here tend to see both SSIDs (from the hub and the
TPlink) instead of the ESSID (a superset of both), whereas most actual
computers running Linux or Windows handle it fine. I haven't noticed any
Debian installs (my main laptop runs Sid) yet have a problem with it,
but then I don't have the same wifi chipset as you.

Range seems to be a critical factor - if I'm outside having a smoke (the
missus won't let me smoke indoors in my own house!) sometimes my iPhone
disconnects and then has issues: it sees two instances of my SSID. Once
I'm inside and much closer to either of the wifi points it suddenly
sorts itself out and reconnects automatically. Smart phones in general
do seem to handle this less gracefully than computers.

It sounds really stupid, but have you tried just getting the laptop
really damn close to either of your access points? Debian seems to be
trying to do the correct thing (it knows you are connecting to an ESSID
and not a simple single SSID) but for reasons unknown, is not happy.

Is it worth checking that you have enabled non-free and contrib in your
repos, and installed ALL of the relevant firmware files? Obviously only
once you have installed, of course, probably via a cable if the wifi
just proves too much of a pain in the arse.

Cheers



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