Wifi

This article describes the setup of a Wifi network device.

Hardware detection
To choose the right driver, first detect the used Wifi controllers. You can use lspci or lsusb for this task:

Kernel
You need to activate the following kernel options:

WEXT
to enable wireless extensions, compile your kernel with the following option (this will support old wireless-tools & iwconfig)

Firmware
Besides the kernel driver, you will also need firmware:

b43
Install the required package, e.g for :

linux-firmware
Install the required package, e.g for :

If there is no package, you have to download the firmware and move it to yourself.

Testing
After a reboot with the new kernel or after loading the modules, check that the device is ready:

You may also try to detect the device (and its name) with either (if your driver supports the wireless extensions stack)

or with (if your driver supports the nl80211 stack)

If not, check dmesg for errors:

Configuration

 * Network management

Advanced Configuration

 * Power management