WiFi: Intel 4965AGN (Dell Precision M4300 and others)


April 2010.
With kernel 2.6.24RC3 the driver comes part of the kernel and does not need manual installation. You still have to copy and install the firmware though.

* Driver: iwl4965
* Version: 0.0.34

Since mac80211 is already a part of 2.6.22, only the iwlwifi module needs to be compiled. Following the instructions in the source package was sufficient. The module loads & finds some hardware and I can successfully scan for networks
. Connecting to our local WiFi access point using WPA works just fine.

How did you get this to work? I am following the INSTALL file
to the letter, and I'm getting errors. Thanks. Aug 21, 2007 02:38 UTC Atoponce

Installation of linux-image-2.6.22-2-686 along with linux-headers-2.6.22-2-686 works with mac80211 8.0.2 patched in (from the mac80211-8.0.2 directory: ln -s /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/source; make patch_kernel), iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17 and iwlwifi-0.0.42. Steps for installation are given below.

If you haven't installed the unstable 2.6.22-2-686 kernel yet that needs to be done and reboot into it. Remember to add unstable or sid to your sources.list.

aptitude install linux-image-2.6.22-2-686

reboot

Now install the headers and build/install the driver.


aptitude install linux-headers-2.6.22-2-686

ln -s /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/source

cd

wget http://intellinuxwireless.org/mac80211/downloads/mac80211-8.0.2.tgz

wget http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17.tgz

wget http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-0.0.42.tgz

tar xzf mac80211-8.0.2.tgz

tar xzf iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17.tgz

iwlwifi-0.0.42.tgz

cd mac80211-8.0.2

make; make patch_kernel

cd ../iwlwifi-0.0.42.tgz

make; make install

cp iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17/*.ucode /lib/firmware

modprobe iwl4965

This same procedure should work with amd64 kernels with the obvious change to the linux-image and linux-header package installations above. The procedure should also work for the 3945 card provided you've removed the ipw3945 drivers before running the modprobe line.


Another (less complicated) way to get it to work is following:

If you have added non-free repositories, you can install a package called firmware-iwlwifi [4]. The Debian-Package-Info page says, that it is architecture independent.

That package contains the binary firmware for Intel Wireless 3945 and 4965 cards.

But the disadvantage referred to the kernel patch is, that it isn't open source.

Source:
* http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Debian_Lenny_on_a_ThinkPad_T61#WiFi:_Intel_4965AGN