I'm moving from Ubuntu 12.04 to Debian Squeeze to avoid Unity and bugs I find running my preferred Gnome on Ubuntu 12.04. So I currently have Ubuntu and Debian running in separate partitions.

Debian works but it can't find my wireless modem. (Ubuntu works fine.) I made my Debian connection by copying the specifications from "Edit Connections" in the Network Manager.

SSID: 2clinton34 <my wireless network name>
Mode: Infrastructure
BSSID: <blank>
Device MAC Address: 50:63:13:C1:7D:F5 (wlan0)
Cloned MAC Address: <blank>
MTU: Automatic
Available to all users: <checked>

IPV4 Settings: Automatic (DHCP) <all others blank>
IPV6 Settings: Automatic <all others blank>
Wireless Security: WPA and WPA2 Personal <and password filled in and double checked for accuracy>

But this doesn't work. Where the radio signal icon should be in the top bar, I only see the networking icon (ie two terminals). When I right click on that, both enable networking and enable wireless are checked, as I would expect. But it never seems to try to connect with the wireless. I'm not sure that Debian recognizes wlan0.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks,

Craig

Please post the output of on your Debian system.

Thanks for your quick response. Here's what you requested: (BTW, ifconfig refers to
an ethernet. I'm not reallly running an ethernet in the conventional manner. I think
that is only set up to get to the wireless router or something like that. This is a standalone
computer at home that links wirelessly to a wifi router which is cabled to modem grabbing
broadband access from a local radio tower. (WIMAX?) It's really a Clear.com setup.


lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset MEI Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
15:00.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
15:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)
15:00.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 11)
15:00.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 11)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
craig@crs:~$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:27:13:b5:b7:c6
inet addr:192.168.15.2 Bcast:192.168.15.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::227:13ff:feb5:b7c6/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1400 Metric:1
RX packets:2579 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2725 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1568785 (1.4 MiB) TX bytes:480467 (469.2 KiB)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:82 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:82 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:19649 (19.1 KiB) TX bytes:19649 (19.1 KiB)
--------------------------------------------------------------
iwconfig:

craig@crs:~$ /usr/sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.

OK, the system is missing the proprietary firmware for that device. You have to install two packages, firmware-realtek and wireless-tools. The easiest way would be to temporary use a wired connection and do it liked described in the Debian Wiki for your card: http://wiki.debian.org/rtl819x#Squeeze

Just to close this up, I couldn't get the firmaware update in the referenced page to work. But, in a totally unrelated effort, I did figure out how to get gnome to work correctly under ubuntu 12.04. ( I had to click on the little flower on the logon page and specify gnome with "no effects", whatever that means. Right... Click on the little flower. Why didn't I see that?

So I will continue using ubuntu and home that the next upgrade goes smoother.

Thanks for your help.

Craig

I have a Realtek USB modem that works perfectly, but dropped the connection every few minutes. I use Gnome Desktop and tried wicd which failed and also locked the browser and entire system.

So I went back to Network Manager and the system was stable again but still dropping the inet connection. This is what worked:


http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/GetArt...=8&converted=0

using the instructions for "i. Adjusting the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size" under the MAC OSX section.

Starting with MTU of 1472, dropped to 1462 and no packet loss. Added the 28, which made 1490, and set this in Network Configuration, instead of "Automatic".

I do not believe it matters which IP address you use since it is a ISP system adjustment that is causing the problem.

Ignoring IvP6 was already set by default, and I doubt that has anything to do with it. I never heard of ticking that off ever fixing anything.

Update: This did not work. Still dropping out. Tried 3.2 kernel from backports which solved the problem but broke other applications. I suspect the wireless driver was written for the newer kernels.