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On 15/06/13 18:44, Neil Winchurst wrote: > You could be right there. My smart phone does not work with my router > (a known problem) so I have a TPlink wireless access point linked to > the router. My phone works with that, whereas the laptops (mine, the > wife's and the daughter's) automatically link to the Netgear router. > If this is causing a problem, well, it has not happened before. > > I could install using a cable link to the router and mess around with > the wifi afterwards. But that is exactly what I did when installing > Debian the first time, and I am still trying to sort out the wifi. > > Incidentally, that is what I did with all the laptops when setting > them up with Xubuntu (I mean that I linked them to the router to > install and let them find the wifi afterwards). I had no problems with > that. > > Neil > Ah, that's definitely the problem: here I also have a TPlink wifi repeater in the garage that connects the inverter for the solar panels on the roof to the general network, which is running wifi from a standard Virgin hub. There are also several more wifi networks but they're all running from an OpenBSD box with a bunch of wifi cards in the back and are separate. Anyway, my iPhone and most other iDevices which come around here tend to see both SSIDs (from the hub and the TPlink) instead of the ESSID (a superset of both), whereas most actual computers running Linux or Windows handle it fine. I haven't noticed any Debian installs (my main laptop runs Sid) yet have a problem with it, but then I don't have the same wifi chipset as you. Range seems to be a critical factor - if I'm outside having a smoke (the missus won't let me smoke indoors in my own house!) sometimes my iPhone disconnects and then has issues: it sees two instances of my SSID. Once I'm inside and much closer to either of the wifi points it suddenly sorts itself out and reconnects automatically. Smart phones in general do seem to handle this less gracefully than computers. It sounds really stupid, but have you tried just getting the laptop really damn close to either of your access points? Debian seems to be trying to do the correct thing (it knows you are connecting to an ESSID and not a simple single SSID) but for reasons unknown, is not happy. Is it worth checking that you have enabled non-free and contrib in your repos, and installed ALL of the relevant firmware files? Obviously only once you have installed, of course, probably via a cable if the wifi just proves too much of a pain in the arse. Cheers -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq