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This portal deals with the installation and configuration of WiFi devices. Device installation is essentially a two-part process: 1) installing the driver (also called a module) and 2) setting up your WiFi interface.

Note: to ensure your product has the latest security updates and operates at optimal performance, it is recommended you update your product to the latest firmware after installation and to periodically check for new firmware releases. Updates can be found by searching your model name at or though the mydlink mobile applications for mydlink registered devices. Qt5 zwave openzwave zwave-controller-communication zwave-network C LGPL-3.0 36 120 71 (3 issues need help) 5 Updated Jan 30, 2021.

Contents

1. Install Driver

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Introduction

A WiFi device operates on an electronic chip called a 'chipset'. We can find the same chipset in several different devices. Consequently, the driver/module for one chipset will work for all wireless devices using that chipset.

Free software based systems such as Debian depend on the cooperation between manufacturers and developers to produce and maintain quality drivers and firmware. Drivers and firmware are what determine if, and how well, your hardware works.

Debian's Social Contract mandates the freeing of the distribution. In practice this means manufacturers are required to cooperate by releasing specifications and free drivers that can be worked on by the community. Newer versions of Debian (6+) do not include non-free drivers or firmware.

Non-free drivers and firmware are produced by entities refusing or unable to cooperate with the free software community. With non-free drivers and firmware support is often unavailable or severely constrained. For instance features are often left out, bugs go unfixed, and what support does exist from the manufacture may be fleeting.

By encouraging good social practices the community is able to support end-users. Complex installation procedures are no longer required and support may continue long after a product has been discontinued.

Availability of compatible WiFi chipsets

Currently there are only a few modern wifi chipsets readily available that work with free software systems. For USB wifi devices this list includes the Realtek RTL8187B chipset (802.11G) and the Atheros AR9170 chipset (802.11N). For Mini PCIe all cards with an Atheros chipset are supported.

Wifi has always been a problem for free software users. USB Wifi cards are becoming less free. With the older 802.11G standard many USB wifi cards had free drivers and did not require non-free firmware. With 802.11N there is only one chipset on the market, from Atheros, which is completely free.

One company which specializes in free software and sells 802.11N USB wifi cards, ThinkPenguin.com, has indicated the availability of free software supported 802.11N USB wifi cards is disappearing. Solving this problem will require more demand than currently exists. Next time you purchase a piece of hardware ask yourself if it is free software compatible.

Simple guide

The following devices have been tested and are confirmed to work with FOSS software only with the latest Debian:

Devices that might work

According to some users/reviewers these devices might possibly work with the latest Debian. They need to be confirmed and need specific guides. Furthermore, they might only work with proprietary firmware (FOSS-column).
In the Count reviewers (date/Debian version)-column the Debian version used by the reviewer, the name of the Debian-based distribution, and/or the year of the review is given in brackets. [PP] stands for a review that says it's working Plug&Play, [nPP] for one explicitly saying that it's not working Plug&Play or describing a guide that's not Plug&Play. [B] stands for a review that says it's buggy. The number curly brackets show how many users rated a review helpful / voted it up. Additional types could get added to the type-column. (with antenna) refers antennas attached by wire.

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Prerequisites

A WiFi interface is an Ethernet interface which also provides WiFi-specific configuration parameters. These parameters are controlled using the iwconfig program.

www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05 - Debian Reference Chapter 5 - Network setup

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• For basic command line usage:

  1. iw tool for manipulating Linux Wireless stack via cfg80211/nl80211.

  2. wireless-tools, tools for manipulating Linux Wireless Extensions (installed by default on Desktop & Laptop installations)

• For GUI systems:

  1. NetworkManager A wired and wireless manager, installed by default on Gnome-Desktop & Laptop installation, configuration access via nm-applet

  2. wicd, a wired and wireless manager, is recommended for other environments without GNOME dependencies such as XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment.

• Other related packages:

  • wpasupplicant, client support for WPA and WPA2 networks

  • rfkill, simple tool used to enable and disable wireless networking devices, typically WLAN, Bluetooth and mobile broadband.

  • iwd, aims to potentially replace wpasupplicant in the future by utilizing modern Linux features via nl80211

If these are missing, you can install these via:

… and similar

Use lsusb to see information about which USB WiFi adapter is connected

Use lspci to see information about which PCI cards is connected

Install Driver

Before you buy, verify your intended device is supported by an available Linux driver. A good indication of support is Tux being displayed on the product's packaging. Better, perhaps, is using a web search engine to find reports from others using it with Debian stable attesting to its performance and usability.

This section presents general lists of WiFi devices (grouped by host interface) and sorted by driver/module name. Each list has two main elements: the module name and the chipset(s) it supports. Known unsupported chipsets are at the end of each list.

If available, a help page link will provide you with further information. We recommend you read the associated help page, as some devices may require to be supplied with microcode (aka 'firmware') before they can be used.

For an indication of support with a specific device, see the Wireless Adapter Chipset Directory.

PCI Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI for more information

Legend :
= OK ; Unsupported(No Driver) ; = Error (Couldn't get it working); [?] Unknown, Not Test ; [-] Not-applicable
= Configuration Required; = Only works with a proprietary driver and/or firmware

• An extended list of PCI-IDs to kernel-module mapping is available at DeviceDatabase/PCI.

USB Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/USB for more information

• An extended list of USB-IDs to kernel-module mapping is available at DeviceDatabase/USB.

PC Card (PCMCIA) Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/PC_Card for more information

Routers

• http://hostap.epitest.fi/, hostapd is a daemon to turn a computer into an access point.

Configure Interface

Your wireless network interface can be configured using a connection manager or Debian's network interface configuration file (/etc/network/interfaces).

Graphical Network Connection Tools:

Network Manager for GNOME (network-manager) or wicd

For more information, please see WiFi/HowToUse.

Troubleshooting

My Wifi card doesn't work/is not detected: many Wifi network interfaces require proprietary Firmware to function. For these cards to work, you will need to either install Debian from the unofficial CD image with included non-free firmwares, or edit your package sources to include the non-free section, and install the firmware-linux-nonfree package (and/or other firmware-* packages).

Resources

• WiFi/HowToUse

• WiFi/AdHoc

• WifiRadar

• Network

External Links

• Wi-Fi - Wikipedia

• Comparison of open-source wireless drivers - Wikipedia

• http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/#howto The Linux Wireless Compatibility and HowTo (2007)

• Linux home networking wiki page about wireless networking.

• http://linux-wless.passys.nl/ Wireless Adapter Chipset Directory

CategoryPortal | CategoryNetwork | CategoryWifi | CategoryHardware

1. Prism3 SSF devices require non-free firmware from userspace. (12)

2. For WPA support on Hermes-based devices, non-free firmware from userspace is required. Non-WPA usage and Prism chipsets (except Prism 3 SSF) use firmware stored in flash memory. (34)

3. Binary-only and GPL firmware available. (5)

4. Binary-only and BSD/MIT firmware available. (6)

5. For devices without flash memory (eg. Intel WPC2011BWW), non-free firmware from userspace is required. (7)

Part of your house not covered by your current WiFi Network? Have an old access point or router laying around that you’re not using? Even though today’s routers are more powerful than ever, you still may have dead zones at your house. I enjoy listening to music and podcasts while working in my garage and WiFi coverage was poor. In today’s article, we extend our WiFi network coverage by adding a second access point that’s hard-wired to our network.

Prerequisites

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For this article I’m going to be assuming you have a few things ready:

• Your main router already connected to the internet and working
• A spare router to use to extend your wireless network. I got a spare Archer C50 from a family member that I’ll be using.
• Some good ol’ Ethernet cable to string together the two access points. Today’s solution is a wired solution that requires the two access points to be hard wired together.

You also need to find out the following for your current main router. You can should be able to determine them by logging into the web interface of your router. To determine the IP address of your router you can type route -n on macOS/Linux or ipconfig /all on Windows to determine the gateway (that’s the router’s IP address). Once logged in, make note of the following:

• SSID / Password
• The wireless channel
• The IP address of the router

Setting up the Repeater

If you got the router from someone, it might be a good idea to reset it to its default settings. Most come with a small reset hole you can stick the tip of a pin into to reset it back to the factory settings.

Connect an ethernet cable from one of the LAN ports on the back of the router to a laptop or computer. Open up a browser and navigate to the default IP address of the router and log in. Usually, the default IP address and username/password are printed on the bottom of the router. If not, try to find the manual.

Match up the WiFi Names

After logging in, first set the Wireless SSIDs to match your main router. This way, your devices just need to remember one network name and can easily transition between routers while you walk around your house. On the Archer C50 this is done in the Basic -> Wireless menu.

You can make these different than your main router if you choose to. You’ll just need to join both access points separately.

Advanced Settings

We need to configure a few more settings so that the router acts as a repeater. Your router may have a “repeater” mode that you can just switch on. But for the Archer C50 you need to do it yourself (probably like most routers).

First off, we need to disable DHCP. This tells the router that it isn’t allowed to assign IP addresses to any devices that join. We’ll only let our main router handle this. For my secondary router, this is under “Advanced -> Network -> DHCP Server”, there is a simple checkbox to disable DHCP.

Finally, we need to disable NAT or Network Address Translation. Again, we want our main router to handle this and just have our secondary router acting as a repeater. For the Archer C50 this setting is in “Advanced -> System Tools -> System Parameters”. Again, it’s just a simple checkbox to untick to disable NAT.

Limiting Interference

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Finally, we don’t want the two routers to interfere with each other wirelessly, so we can set their wireless channels to be far apart. If you wrote down the wireless channel for your main router, choose something at least 5 different for your secondary router for your 2.4 GHz network. So if you’re main router is on channel 6, your secondary router should be on channel 1 or 11. The diagram below shows which channel interefere with each other. For example, channels 2 and 3 overlap a lot.

The WiFi Analyzer app for Android allows you to see the different bands being used around your home so you can visually see what channels are being used.

Put it Into Production

Now that all your settings are good to go, it’s time to connect it to your main network! You now need to connect an ethernet cable from the LAN ports of your main router to the LAN port of your new secondary router acting as a repeater. Note you do not want to use the WAN/Internet port on your secondary router, you should use the LAN ports on both sides.

Now that both routers are part of the same network your devices can communicate across the network and routers. Having a great network backbone to your home helps with streaming data, home automation appliances and allows you to get work done in any part of your home.

Have other tips for improving your network setup at your home? Let me know in the comments!