Re: Wi-Fi broken on Dell E6520, Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 AGN, Debian 11.7 Xfce

[David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com>]

On 5/4/23 16:12, zithro wrote:
> On 05 May 2023 00:24, David Christensen wrote:
> > # ls -l /var/lib/systemd/rfkill
> > total 12
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2 May  4 12:15 pci-0000:03:00.0:wlan
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2 May 24  2022 pci-0000:0b:00.0:wlan
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2 May  4 13:04 platform-dell-laptop:wlan
>
> Strange, looks like you have two wlan NICs ? Oh, maybe it's the 
> bluetooth module.
> Dunno, wireless sucks anyways ^^
> So, to determine the correct WLAN adapter run both :
>
> lspci -s 03:00.0
> lspci -s 0b:00.0


2023-05-04 16:23:44 root@laalaa ~
# lspci -s 03:00.0
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 
[Taylor Peak] (rev 34)

2023-05-04 16:23:50 root@laalaa ~
# lspci -s 0b:00.0
0b:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): O2 Micro, Inc. 1394 OHCI Compliant Host 
Controller (rev 05)

> > So, there are three (3) files matching the description offered by 
> > Christoph Brinkhaus, and they all contain "0\n".
>
> This is strange, he indicated that 0 is for normal ops, and 1 for blocked.
>
> > # systemctl --status rfkill
> > systemctl: unrecognized option '--status'
>
> My bad, it's
> # systemctl status rfkill


2023-05-04 16:23:57 root@laalaa ~
# systemctl status rfkill
Unit rfkill.service could not be found.

> > > Is the rfkill *module* loaded ?
> > > # lsmod | grep rfkill
> > # lsmod | grep rfkill
> > rfkill                 32768  4 dell_laptop,dell_rbtn,cfg80211
>
> Good, it's loaded.
> And there's a hint, the module "dell_rbtn", which should mean dell radio 
> button.
>
> > > Is the rfkill *tool* installed ?
> > # dpkg -l "*rfkill*"
> > dpkg-query: no packages found matching *rfkill*
> > > If not, install it
> > > # apt install rfkill
>
> You did not install it :p


2023-05-04 16:24:49 root@laalaa ~
# apt install rfkill
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  rfkill
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 88.6 kB of archives.
After this operation, 151 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 rfkill amd64 
2.36.1-8+deb11u1 [88.6 kB]
Fetched 88.6 kB in 0s (445 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package rfkill.
(Reading database ... 167563 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../rfkill_2.36.1-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking rfkill (2.36.1-8+deb11u1) ...
Setting up rfkill (2.36.1-8+deb11u1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) ...


Reboot.  Login.  Xfce Panel -> right click NetworkManager -> Enable 
Wi-Fi -- Wi-Fi did not start.  Try Enable Wi-Fi a couple three more 
times -- nope:

2023-05-04 16:32:26 root@laalaa ~
# tail /var/log/syslog
May  4 16:30:37 laalaa systemd[1552]: Reached target Main User Target.
May  4 16:30:37 laalaa systemd[1552]: Startup finished in 125ms.
May  4 16:30:37 laalaa systemd[1]: Started User Manager for UID 0.
May  4 16:30:37 laalaa systemd[1]: Started Session 5 of user root.
May  4 16:31:17 laalaa NetworkManager[850]: <info>  [1683243077.3070] 
audit: op="radio-control" arg="wireless-enabled" pid=1418 uid=13250 
result="success"
May  4 16:32:21 laalaa NetworkManager[850]: <info>  [1683243141.1786] 
audit: op="radio-control" arg="wireless-enabled" pid=1418 uid=13250 
result="success"
May  4 16:32:21 laalaa systemd[1]: Started Run anacron jobs.
May  4 16:32:21 laalaa anacron[1593]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2023-05-04
May  4 16:32:21 laalaa anacron[1593]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
May  4 16:32:21 laalaa systemd[1]: anacron.service: Succeeded.


Try Debian 9 -- nope.


Try Windows 7 Pro -- nope.


It looks like I have a dead Wi-Fi adapter.


Thank you for the help.  :-)

David