[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#387851: network-manager-gnome: madwifi problems; possible solution?

[C. Scott Ananian]

Package: network-manager-gnome
Followup-For: Bug #387851

The madwifi driver was made more picky about receiving bad packets; many home
routers have bad firmware that generates slightly bogus packet headers during
association.  The latest version (0.9.3) of the madwifi driver is supposed to
be less picky & contain some workarounds, but it's not quite in debian yet.
But be sure you also check your router firmware for upgrades: I updated my
netgear router at home this past weekend and suddenly network-manager worked
fine with it.

However, network-manager is still having trouble at work (MIT), with two
different wireless networks -- the general MIT one (essid MIT) and the
one in my building (essid StataCenter).  I assume that their firmwares
are appropriately updated, although I can't be certain.  The other thing
the two networks seem to have in common is that they both involve multiple
access points: I can always see more than one router for the same essid
(I forget the technical name for this setup).  Looking at iwconfig while
network manager does its thing, it seems that network-manager is
forcing an AP MAC as well as an ESSID; is it possible that network-manager
is choosing the wrong AP MAC (say, one that's really too far away), causing
the problems?
 --scott

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome depends on:
ii  gnome-icon-theme          2.14.2-3       GNOME Desktop icon theme
ii  libart-2.0-2              2.3.17-1       Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0               1.12.4-3       The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libaudiofile0             0.2.6-6        Open-source version of SGI's audio
ii  libavahi-client3          0.6.16-5       Avahi client library
ii  libavahi-common3          0.6.16-5       Avahi common library
ii  libavahi-glib1            0.6.16-5       Avahi glib integration library
ii  libbonobo2-0              2.14.0-4       Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0            2.14.0-6       The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                     2.3.6.ds1-13   GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2                 1.2.4-4        The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3               1.0.2-1        simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2          0.71-3         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libesd-alsa0 [libesd0]    0.2.36-3       Enlightened Sound Daemon (ALSA) - 
ii  libfontconfig1            2.4.2-1.2      generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6              2.2.1-5        FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgconf2-4               2.16.1-1       GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libgcrypt11               1.2.3-2        LGPL Crypto library - runtime libr
ii  libglade2-0               1:2.6.0-4      library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.12.6-2       The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-keyring0         0.6.0-3        GNOME keyring services library
ii  libgnome2-0               2.16.0-2       The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0         2.14.0-2       A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0              2.14.1-3       The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0            1:2.14.2-7     GNOME virtual file-system (runtime
ii  libgnutls13               1.4.4-3        the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libgpg-error0             1.4-2          library for common error values an
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.8.20-7       The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libhal1                   0.5.8.1-9      Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libice6                   1:1.0.1-2      X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libjpeg62                 6b-13          The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libnm-util0               0.6.4-7        network management framework (shar
ii  libnotify1                0.4.4-1        sends desktop notifications to a n
ii  liborbit2                 1:2.14.4-1     libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpanel-applet2-0        2.14.3-5       library for GNOME 2 panel applets
ii  libpango1.0-0             1.14.8-5       Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpng12-0                1.2.15~beta5-1 PNG library - runtime
ii  libpopt0                  1.10-3         lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                    1:1.0.1-3      X11 Session Management library
ii  libtasn1-3                0.3.6-2        Manage ASN.1 structures (runtime)
ii  libx11-6                  2:1.0.3-6      X11 client-side library
ii  libxcursor1               1.1.7-4        X cursor management library
ii  libxext6                  1:1.0.1-2      X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxfixes3                1:4.0.1-5      X11 miscellaneous 'fixes' extensio
ii  libxi6                    1:1.0.1-4      X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1              1:1.0.1-4.1    X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                   2.6.27.dfsg-1  GNOME XML library
ii  libxrandr2                2:1.1.0.2-5    X11 RandR extension library
ii  libxrender1               1:0.9.1-3      X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  network-manager           0.6.4-7        network management framework daemo
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.3-13     compression library - runtime

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome recommends:
ii  libpam-keyring                0.0.8-6    PAM module that unlock gnome keyri
pn  network-manager-openvpn       <none>     (no description available)
pn  network-manager-vpnc          <none>     (no description available)
ii  notification-daemon           0.3.7-1    a daemon that displays passive pop

-- no debconf information