I run Debian testing and the kernel upgraded to 3.2 a while ago. I've had the problem that my dell laptop with Centrino wireless card can't join wireless networks, Like others, I had mistaken this for a network-manager problem because an
upgrade of n-m occurred around the same time.
This week I learned that this is likely do to a change in the wifi driver in the kernel, iwlagn replaced by iwlwifi, and
the rumor is that the last dependable version of the wifi driver is in kernel 3.1.0.
(https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=785561)
After hearing that issue, I have started booting the 3.1 kernel and the wifi problem has completely disappeared! I've
seen some posts indicating the problem is known and solved in experimental versions of the 3.2.x kernel, but I have no
actual evidence because I can't waste another day fighting with this.
For the details:
This is a Dell Precision laptop M4600.
$ lspci -v
....
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 35)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 3x3 AGN
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 48
Memory at ded00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities:
Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
$ uname -r
3.1.0-1-amd64
You will know if you are experiencing same problem under kernel 3.2.x if you see this in dmesg
[ 812.138914] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 819.918684] wlan0: authenticate with 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 (try 1)
[ 819.920615] wlan0: authenticated
[ 820.028658] wlan0: associate with 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 (try 1)
[ 820.031205] wlan0: deauthenticated from 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 (Reason: 9)
[ 848.322384] wlan0: authenticate with 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 (try 1)
[ 848.324254] wlan0: authenticated
[ 848.331230] wlan0: failed to insert Dummy STA entry for the AP (error -17)
[ 875.755429] wlan0: deauthenticating from 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 by local choice (reason=2)
[ 875.804617] wlan0: authenticate with 5c:d9:98:65:64:b0 (try 1)
[ 875.807889] wlan0: authenticated
[ 875.808495] wlan0: failed to insert Dummy STA entry for the AP (error -17)
