As a follow-up I have just uninstalled Network Manager and installed WICD and, or whatever reason, WICD has problems trying to connect to my own G WiFi router, which Network Manager had dropouts with, but connected fine to the cable company's WiFi router. So, it seems my own router may be failing a little in its old (well ,not that old but over 5 years) age.
I will keep on with WICD and post if I notice anything. I should mention that the reason I mentioned WICD over Network Manager in the first place is that a few years ago Network Manager was nowhere near as good at getting and keeping a WiFi connection as WICD but it seems the tables may have turned.

The two primary issues I've had with wifi stability is drivers and signal strength. Most times solved by new driver versions from github, or different firmware (not necessarily newer firmware) for my chipset. I also tend to elevate my wifi devices since the space near a ceiling is free from furnature and mirrors (most times). An external router that you connect to with ethernet is good for this type of approach. And is more likely to support the newer wifi standards with a stronger signal as a dedicated device. If you're using a USB dongle, you might put it on a powered USB hub to ensure that it gets the power that it needs to operate properly.

In my case I am line-of-sight to the WiFi hub but Linux's ability to connect to my old "G" hub was patchy at best. Connecting to the cable company provided "N" hub seems to be a lot more stable so I suspect the various software is being written with more modern connection in mind.

What is a "Wifi Hub" - is it the same thing as an Access Point?

Sorry, yes, I mean a home WiFi enabled router.

It could be the hub. My RT-N16 recently blew a capacitor and it was flakey (high latency / disconnects) leading up to that event. I was able to nick a similar spec'd capacitor from an old motherboard and it works again. The replacement is actually under spec'd, but it works (until it doesn't). The one that blew was basically melting trying to desolder it. I'm not a tinkerer normally, but apparently several people have had the same issue with the same component. Complete with blogs and pictures of before and after. I had the part and the time so that was a good route, rather than buy a new one at $80-ish which would ultimately suffer the same fate.

For my devices, my broadcom chipset on an XP era laptop needs older firmware. Without it, the ESSID needs to be set twice to take and other quirks. Which standard gui frontends do not play well with quirks like that. My realtek chipset on a new-ish hp stream 11 needs the github sources (rtlwifi_new). It works without said sources on system defaults, but burps every couple of hours and needs a bit of a nudge to work again.

I ran Debian ten years ago. At that time, the version was "Woody", I believe. Thought I'd give it another go, but the quality has gone way down. About the only good thing was cleaning up that mess of an installer.

I opted for a 'Net install, using a bootable USB stick to start the process. The instructions given for preparing it were wrong. You can't copy the image; you need to "dd" it to include everything: the partitions, file system, and most importantly, the MBR. I knew this already, so prepared a working USB stick. The install went very well. The problems began when I tried to apt-get xemacs. It kept insisting on a CD I didn't have because I didn't do a CD install. After arguing with it for a half hour, it finally fetched the package. It was totally messed up, containing almost nothing. OK, no prob, fire up Iceweasel and go get the tarballs.

Then this happens: "Can't tell what a x86_64 machine is". WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT! Never saw that before. I figure not a prob: just blow away the configure file, the Makefile.in's and remake with aclocal, automake, and autoconf to get a workable configure file. No aclocal, no automake, no autoconf. WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT!

Back to apt-get. More arguments about non-existent CDs. Finally, it connects to a mirror, then locks up completely. Since I had to reboot anyway, I stick in the USB drive with the Slackware install, and sent Debby Ann straight to /dev/null.

Debian used to be a really good distro (though not so newbie-friendly). There have been a lot of derivative distros to take care of that problem. These days, it's gone so far downhill it ain't worth it. Deb's general messed-up-ness is making its way into derivative distros, and I'm seeing a lot of complaints regarding problems with Ubuntu. No surprise there. The archive seems to be full of broken packages as well.

"Debianisabitch": yes, Debbie Ann certainly is, and this is not good. Who knows how many she sends running back to Windows?

I say T'hellwiddit. Install Slack, install anything else. That's the only way to send a message to the developers to make them fix their broken distro.

The method works fine -- I used it myself last weekend.
As long as the `cp` operation is directed to a block device rather than a mounted filesystem the "MBR" (which the ISO image does not use because it has a GUID partition table, BTW) is copied along with the filesystem type and everything else.

Remove the CD/DVD lines from /etc/apt/sources.list -- they are left in place for the benefit of users who may not have an internet connection to download new packages.

If a mirror is selected during the installation process (and an internet connection is available [1]), these lines are removed automatically.

If not, edit sources.list to match the example provided on the Debian wiki.
https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList#...8_.22Jessie.22

[1] Do you have wireless/ethernet cards that require non-free firmware? If so, the firmware is not provided on the official ISO images as it is in violation of Debian's Free Software Guidelines.
https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

This is what I mean by general messed-up-ness. It shouldn't be necessary. After all, it was a 'Net install, so that pretty much proves you have a connection.

"If a mirror is selected during the installation process (and an internet connection is available [1]), these lines are removed automatically".

No they're not.

Don't know; don't care. I and Debby Ann have had a permanent parting of the ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L...n_Timeline.svg

To each case their own, try to try them all! I have (at times) but tend to prefer the top. 4.0.0-2-amd64, Unstable?-ROTFL

I tend to do debootstrap installs. It's a lot quicker on my otherwise 3rd world-ish internet speeds aka USA ISPs.

If you want basic tools like automake and autoconf, you have to install them. Debian has never been much of a hand holding distro. But most everything that any other distro has is there, IF you install it (not installed by default in most cases). With apt-cache and apt-file it's almost easy to find what you're looking for in the available packages. And with 40k+ packages, it probably is there if you need it.

I tend to use debian. As I can't seem to find an apt-file equivalent on non-apt based distros. When you're compiling something and need some random file.h knowing what package to install that has that specific file is priceless. Plus not having to use google to find it on page seven of the search results after 5+ full page ads that loaded before the page did.

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/e...86_64/pkgfile/

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pkgfile

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Oh, man. My situation was pretty the same, i am always trying to make my wi-fi better and faster. But, as i understood, it was bad because of my internet provider. I'vechanged it and everything started to work.