Re: Intel 2100 wireless firmware (ipw2100-1.3.fw) for Lenny installation

[Marco Vaschetto]

Mark ha scritto:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to install the firmware for an Intel ipw2100 wifi card on
> a Dell Latitude D800 laptop (the driver is supported in the Lenny
> kernel, just not the firmware). According to this page
> http://wiki.debian.org/ipw2200 (note bold text by Steve McIntyre) the
> Debian installer should be able to read the tarball file during the
> installation; I tried last night but the installer needs the .fw file
> not the tar.gz file. Every link I've tried, including this one
> http://packages.debian.org/lenny/firmware-ipw2x00 is either a tar.gz
> or .deb file. I can't seem to find a download for .fw...any ideas or
> help out there? I suppose I can install the firmware after getting
> Lenny installed by adding "contrib non-free" to /apt/sources.list, but
> since the installer prompts for "ipw2100-1.3.fw" file during
> installation, I'd like to get it installed at that time.
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>
> Mark
do you have try to unpack the tar ball? you download?

if you don't have any machine whit Linux you can use 7zip on windows

for unpack the package *.tar.gz if not finish the Lenny installation
giust "apt-get install firmware-ipw2x00" and load the appropiate modules.

good by

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-us...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org

[Mark]

[Mark]

>On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Marco Vaschetto <m.vas...@snservice.net> wrote:
>do you have try to unpack the tar ball? you download?

[snip]

Thanks for the reply; I have looked at the .tar file and here are the contents; all .deb files.

>On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Arthur Machlas <arthur....@gmail.com> wrote:
>Actually, I've experienced problems with setting up wifi connnections after installing the firmware during the installation phase. You're much better off installing the firmware via aptitude after installing.

[snip]

Ahhhh, good feedback.  This is how I've done it before, but since the installer asked I figured it wanted it.  Will stick to aptitude installation.

Thanks,
Mark

[Arthur Machlas]

Actually, I've experienced problems with setting up wifi connnections after installing the firmware during the installation phase. You're much better off installing the firmware via aptitude after installing.

Arthur

[Andrei Popescu]

Last time I tried this it was enough to have the .deb on some media (I
used an USB stick).

Regards,
Andrei
--
Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic

[Marcelo Chiapparini]

2010/1/19 Mark <mama...@gmail.com>

Hi Mark,

try this link:

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

regards

Marcelo

[Marcelo Chiapparini]

Hi Mark, 

In fact, I have the same problem as you in the past. And I received help from this list:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2008/01/msg02130.html

read this message, because it has important information about the installing of the firmware. It worked like a charm for me.

regards

Marcelo

2010/1/19 Mark <mama...@gmail.com>

Awesome, thanks Marcelo!

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Marcelo Chiapparini <marcelo...@gmail.com> wrote:

2010/1/19 Mark <mama...@gmail.com>

Hi Mark,

I downloaded the firmware from this link:

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

regards

Marcelo

--
Marcelo Chiapparini
http://sites.google.com/site/marcelochiapparini

[Mark]

>On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:32 AM, Marcelo Chiapparini <marcelo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi Mark, 

>In fact, I have the same problem as you in the past. And I received help from this list:

>http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2008/01/msg02130.html

>

>read this message, because it has important information about the installing of the firmware. It worked like a charm for me.

Thanks Marcelo, is it correct to assume the Debian Lenny installer places the .fw files in /lib/firmware when it prompts for it during installation?  I downloaded the .fw files from your link and placed on the usb stick I install from, so I will try tonight and report back results.  I know aptitude can handle it after installing but this intrigues me - the less work to do after installation, the better for me.

>On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Marco Vaschetto <m.vas...@snservice.net> wrote:
>Sorry, before I misunderstand you,
>if you want extract the firmware from the *.deb file do you can use "dpkg-deb --extract name-package.deb /destination/folder"
>of course if you have another machine whit Linux , if is possible extract the *.deb files under windows this I didn't know.
>If you need some body can extract for you and send by attachment whit e-mail.

Thank you Marco.  I will attempt to use the .fw file downloaded by the link Marcelo provided; if for some reason that does not work I will use your suggestion.  I have several Lenny computers at home available to extract the firmware per your suggestion.

Mark

[Mark]

Well, I got the .fw file to load and the wireless device appears loaded but cannot connect to my WPA personal wireless network.  I am running another Lenny laptop that connects fine, almost identical hardware except it has a Broadcom wireless NIC.  All wireless networks are sniffed by the device, which means the driver and firmware are both functioning correctly, right?  Here is my iwconfig and lspci -nn output, any ideas why it won't connect?

debian-latd800:/home/mark# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth2      unassociated  ESSID:off/any  Nickname:"ipw2100"
          Mode:Managed  Channel=0  Access Point: Not-Associated  
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm  
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

debian-latd800:/home/mark# lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3340] (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller [8086:3341] (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:24c2] (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:24c4] (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:24c7] (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:24cd] (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:24cc] (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller [8086:24ca] (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller [8086:24c5] (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Modem [0703]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller [8086:24c6] (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go AGP 8x] [10de:0286] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet [14e4:165d] (rev 01)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI7510 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac47] (rev 01)
02:01.1 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI7510,7610 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac4a] (rev 01)
02:01.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Texas Instruments PCI7410,7510,7610 OHCI-Lynx Controller [104c:802b]
02:01.3 System peripheral [0880]: Texas Instruments PCI7410,7510,7610 PCI Firmware Loading Function [104c:8204]
02:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter [8086:1043] (rev 04)


Thanks!
Mark

[Mark]

Oh, and if I boot to an Ubuntu Live 9.10 CD it connects no problem.  What the what??

[Arthur Machlas]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Mark <mama...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh, and if I boot to an Ubuntu Live 9.10 CD it connects no problem.  What the what??

Hi, me again. You know, the guy who said it wasn't worth the trouble. That it's better to use aptitude after the fact. Yeah... hey.

Good news is I eventually found a simple answer on google. Bad news is it was some time ago, don't remember how or where I found it. Essentially I had to clean out some config files that weren't set up properly by installing firmware during the before any parts of the system were actually installed.

Best,
Arthur

[Mark]

Aptitude it is.  I don't mind nuking the hdd and reinstalling Lenny from scratch (I have the dvd .iso downloaded).  Lesson learned!  (Assuming aptitude installation works!)

Mark

[Mark]

I did a fresh install of Lenny and still the same problem persists.  All wireless networks are recognized, and after being prompted for my wpa key, network manager just shows 2 gray dots (neither one turns green) and after about 30 seconds it times out.  Before anyone asks, I'm copying/pasting the wpa key from a usb drive that I use on the other laptops which connect just fine, but again they have BCM wifi cards not this ipw2100 type.

Any other ideas?

Mark

[Rob Owens]

I missed the beginning of this thread, so I'm not sure what the aptitude
solution is. I see that there's a firmware-ipw2x00 package in
debian-backports. If you haven't already tried that, you might want to
give it a shot.

-Rob

[Mark]

>On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Mark <mama...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

>I did a fresh install of Lenny and still the same problem persists.  All wireless networks are recognized, and after being prompted for my wpa key, network manager just shows 2 gray dots (neither one >turns green) and after about 30 seconds it times out.  Before anyone asks, I'm copying/pasting the wpa key from a usb drive that I use on the other laptops which connect just fine, but again they have >BCM wifi cards not this ipw2100 type.
>
>Any other ideas?
>
>Mark

Per the page here http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/README.ipw2100, it appears wpa isn't supported yet in the latest stable firmware version. *sad face*  Relevant text is posted below.  Since I did "aptitude install firmware-ipw2x00" per the Debian wiki, I assume it picked the stable firmware release which is 0.14.  Since there are newer versions for package "firmware-ipw2x00" since the stable release, and Ubuntu uses Unstable from Debian, which contains one of the newer versions, that must be why it works when I boot to a live Ubuntu 9.10 CD.  Sid uses version 0.22 according to the Debian page.  I'm not advanced enough to know what has been updated from 0.14 to 0.22 that makes it work, but the list here http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-nonfree_0.22/changelog has lots of stuff and I assume one or more of them is related to why Ubuntu can connect to WPA, and Lenny cannot.

If anything I said is wrong please correct me so I can learn!

2. Release 1.2.0 Current Supported Features
-----------------------------------------------

- Managed (BSS) and Ad-Hoc (IBSS)
- WEP (shared key and open)
- Wireless Tools support 
- 802.1x

Enabled (but not supported) features:
- Monitor/RFMon mode
- WPA/WPA2

[Mark]

>On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Rob Owens <row...@ptd.net> wrote:

>

>I missed the beginning of this thread, so I'm not sure what the aptitude
>solution is.  I see that there's a firmware-ipw2x00 package in
>debian-backports.  If you haven't already tried that, you might want to
>give it a shot.

Hi Rob, I was able to get the firmware installed via aptitude only to discover WPA encryption is not supported in the Lenny package, but is supported in Sid.  That's what my latest email response was regarding.  Looks like I need to use Ubuntu for a while unless there's some magic to work that I don't know of!

Thank you,
Mark

[Mark]

>On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Rob Owens <row...@ptd.net> wrote:

>

>I missed the beginning of this thread, so I'm not sure what the aptitude
>solution is.  I see that there's a firmware-ipw2x00 package in
>debian-backports.  If you haven't already tried that, you might want to
>give it a shot.

Hi all,

My apologies but it seems I had the wrong diagnosis.  Listed as 802.11 b compliant, the Intel 2100 mini PCI wlan card is limited to 11.1 Mbps transfer rate (specs available here http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/pro2100/sb/cs-008171.htm).  My router at home is set for 54 Mbps, G-only mode.  The router I had it connected to at my office was in Mixed Mode, hence broadcasting at 54 and 11 Mbps, among others, so it connected at 11 Mbps.  I believe this accounts for why the wifi network is detected and listed by Gnome's Network Manager, but the laptop fails to connect to it at home.

It took a while but I think I've figured it out!

Thanks,
Mark