My new T61p has the standard built-in Intel 4965AGN wireless card for 802.11b/g/n goodness. The kernel has had driver support for this hardware since 2.6.24. But, after doing a default Debian Lenny install, the wireless just ain’t working… what gives?

Well, this comes up in /var/log/syslog and others:

iwl4965: iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode firmware file req failed: Reason -2
iwl4965: Could not read microcode: -2

As is explained here, the iwlwifi drivers require a binary firmware (aka microcode) image to function. The drivers themselves are free, both as in beer and as in freedom. However, the microcode images, in order to enforce end-user FCC compliance, are free as in beer but not freedom. Thus a default Debian install, which bends over backwards to be free as in beer and free as in freedom, does not include the microcode images.

Two options:

1. Install the firmware image yourself. Find the image you need here (as of August 2008 the version you want was 1.21), download it, extract it, and copy it to /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode.
2. Or, add the non-free repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list, and do an

   apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi

Or, pretend you didn’t really want wireless if you can’t have it free as in freedom… and put it on your to-do list to reverse-engineer that binary firmware image. Buena suerte! ;p

I can’t remember if a reboot was necessary after installing the microcode image. But that should be it in terms of edits and installs… everything wifi, all the way out to the gnome GUI, should now just automagically work.

This is the first in what will be a short series of posts of what I’ve had to do to get Debian (Lenny – currently the ‘testing’ distro) working fully and smoothly on my new T61p.

The key options in my T61p package:

39T4822 	VBB WWAN
42V9332 	SBB WAN:VERIZONSIERRACDMA2000
42V8603 	SBB INT.WWAN ANTENNA 15.4"
42V8659 	SBB CL.PLATE T61P WL WWAN
42W7002 	SBB FCC-ID/LABEL FOR WWAN
42V8675 	SBB VERIZON OPTION

That all translates to a slickly built-in Verizon card and antenna:

$ sudo lsusb -v | grep Sierra
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 1199:0220 Sierra Wireless, Inc.
  idVendor           0x1199 Sierra Wireless, Inc.
  iManufacturer           1 Sierra Wireless, Incorporated
  iProduct                2 Sierra Wireless MC5725 Modem

Here is the only officially unofficial official public documentation I could find for that card on Linux.

Before setting this up with Debian, I’d recommend getting it working with Windows if you haven’t reformatted over it yet. The card and connection pretty much ‘just works’ on Lenovo’s preinstalled Windows. This will mostly eliminate Verizon as the source of the problem if things don’t go right with Debian.

A default Debian install provides a number of tools you can use to configure and automate your connection. I like gnome-ppp (essentially a GUI frontend on wvdial) best. I’ve also set it up with gnome’s network-admin applet (System->Administration->Network), but it doesn’t provide good user feedback on the connection process or status. And by ‘good’, I mean ‘any’. Perhaps future versions will have better integration of dial-out connections, now that they’re coming back into style with EVDO and 3G networks. In any case, I will provide instructions for both these two tools here. (Note this is an either/or. There is no reason to bother setting this up with both tools, other than to test out the GUI’s.)

First, GUI configuration. Here’s your key points:

• Username: YOURPHONENUMBER@vzw3g.com
• Password: vzw
• Phone number to dial: #777

For gnome-ppp, you want to:

• Use the ‘Detect’ mechanism. It worked perfect for me. Try it.
• Under Options, enable ’stupid mode’ to speed up the connection process substantially. You’re also calling Verizon stupid, in a extremely passive aggressive manner… ummm, feels so good…. stupid stupid stupid.

For network-admin:

• Set the Modem port to /dev/ttyUSB0.
• Check the ‘Set modem as default route to Internet’ option or your machine will just drop your outbound packets on the floor.
• No remote authentication. In the file /etc/ppp/peers/ppp0, add a line ‘noauth’ to disable your authentication of the verizon servers. This means that if someone successfully hijacks Verizon’s ‘#777′ number, you will have no way of knowing, and they will have complete control over your traffic. (gnome-ppp does this ‘noauth’ for you automatically, for better or for worse.)
• Do not set the modem volume. In the file /etc/chatscripts/ppp0, comment out the line that has a command like ‘AT&FH0XX’ where XX are wildcards depending on your GUI settings. Issuing this command causes the modem error out, reporting ‘NO CARRIER’ on the ensuing ATDT (dial) command.

And that’s it! For debugging, your friends are tail, /var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, gnome-ppp’s GUI log display, cat, echo, /dev/ttyUSB0, minicom and or course, good old google.