WPA Security in Debian Squeeze (6.0.4)

JezL1970 · 08-01-2012, 03:14 AM

I am relatively new to Linux and Debian in particular. I have just installed Debian Squeeze (6.0.4) on a Dell Inspiron Duo but after a couple of attemtps could not connect to my wifi network.

This was a problem because the Duo does not have an ethernet port.

I have now changed my wifi network back to WEP security and all is well, except for the fact WEP is far less secure and I want to be able to get WPA working.

I've looked at the web and there is a lot of confusing pages which regularly mention wpa_supplicant.

I don't need step by step instructions but I was hoping to benefit from your collective experience to tell me exactly what I need to install to get WPA working.

Many thanks.

VDP76 · 08-01-2012, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JezL1970

I've looked at the web and there is a lot of confusing pages which regularly mention wpa_supplicant.
I don't need step by step instructions but I was hoping to benefit from your collective experience to tell me exactly what I need to install to get WPA working.

among all the possible sources out there in the web, for Debian I use its wiki as a reference...in your specific case see this and the links therein.

I hope this would help.

JezL1970 · 08-06-2012, 02:25 PM

Thanks VDP76,

I got this working and it was very simple in the end. WPA_SUPPLICANT was up to date but editing the /etc/network/interfaces file initially didn't work. Ultimately it came down to an error between the keyboard and the chair.

The SSID is case sensitive! I'm a windows user and I'm just not used to case-sensitivity.

Thanks.

Now I've only got 423 other problems. :-)

EDDY1 · 08-06-2012, 05:35 PM

The problem may not be WPA It may be that you haven't installed the wireless driver, some of them are considered non-free which means that you need to add them to your /etc/apt/sources.list & do an aptitiude update, but you don't have an active network so update will fail. your only other option would be to install the driver from cd.
Post output of "lspci".
You may have to transfer file to usb & upload using the wins computer that you are presently on for us to view, but we need the info to help you.

VDP76 · 08-07-2012, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

some of them are considered non-free which means that you need to add them to your /etc/apt/sources.list & do an aptitiude update

that is correct, but if you don't want to enable non-free repos you can also just download a .deb file and install it manually (together with its dependencies, if needed).

so JezL1970, I did not exactly get your last post, does your wifi work now?
and, yeah, everything is case sensitive in Linux...