debian wifi failure

[Sam Hartman]

>>>>> "Jude" == Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at panix.com> writes:

    Jude> The debian web page on how to use wifi is useless.  Has anyone
    Jude> here got experience setting up a workable version of
    Jude> /etc/network/interfaces?  I can probably put mine up on this
    Jude> list if it will help.

This is a case where the GUI really is worth using. Even if I didn't
plan to use gnome for anything else, I might well use orca and gnome and
the Networkmanager ui to configure wireless.
It's not that I can't do it from the command line, it's that it's a bit
fiddly and the GUIs are nice and simple.

Sure, although I wouldn't recommend using /etc/network/interfaces to set
up wifi.
It does work after a fassion, but you're going to have better luck with
NetworkManager or  wpa_supplicant directly.

For NetworkManager, a config file in
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections might look like

[ipv6]
method=auto
ip6-privacy=2

[connection]
id=eduroam
uuid=6012b4d8-3422-410c-aa3b-67864a6b1fc4
type=802-11-wireless
timestamp=1381817750

[802-11-wireless-security]
key-mgmt=wpa-eap

[802-11-wireless]
ssid=eduroam
mode=infrastructure
mac-address=84:3A:4B:71:DE:20
security=802-11-wireless-security

[802-1x]
eap=ttls;
identity=REDACTED
anonymous-identity=@REDACTED
phase2-auth=mschapv2
password-flags=1

[ipv4]
method=auto


I'm not sure you actually need the uuid; I suspect not.
/etc/network/interfaces might look like
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

And then wpa_supplicant.conf might look like
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
        ssid="Sam 2.462ghz"
        key_mgmt=NONE
}

network={
        ssid="hartmans24"
        psk="REDACTED"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}