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VIA VT6656 devices
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based the VIA VT6656 chipset on Debian systems.
Contents
vt6656_stage is a module produced by the vt6656 vendor driver, supporting wireless LAN devices based on the VIA VT6656 USB chipset. Supported devices are listed at the end of this page.
The driver is included in Debian Linux kernel images for x86 since since linux-2.6 2.6.32-31 (part of the Debian 6.0.1 point release). Non-free firmware is required (vntwusb.fw), which is available in the firmware-linux-nonfree package.
This staging driver is only available for the x86 and x86-64 architectures (Debian i386 and AMD64 ports respectively) at this time.
For support of VIA PCI wireless LAN chipsets (e.g. VT6655), see NDISwrapper.
Installation
Squeeze
Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:
# Debian Squeeze/6.0 deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages. Install the firmware-linux-nonfree and wireless-tools packages:
# aptitude update && aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree wireless-tools
- Connect the wireless LAN device to your system.
The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via:
# modprobe vt6656_stage
Verify your device has an available interface:
# iwconfig
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Wheezy
Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:
# Debian Wheezy (testing) deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian wheezy main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages. Install the firmware-linux-nonfree and wireless-tools packages:
# aptitude update && aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree wireless-tools
- Connect the wireless LAN device to your system.
The necessary kernel module should be automatically loaded. If necessary, it can be manually loaded via:
# modprobe vt6656_stage
Verify your device has an available interface:
# iwconfig
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Troubleshooting
Examine the kernel ring buffer (dmesg(1)) to verify required firmware is loaded by the driver. Lack of firmware is the usual reason for the "SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory" error message.
Ensure the firmware is installed, then reload the kernel module:
modprobe -r vt6656_stage ; modprobe vt6656_stage
Supported Devices
The page HowToIdentifyADevice/USB explains how to identify a USB device.
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo vt6656_stage in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-38) kernel images.
USB: 160A:3184 VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VNT-6656 [WiFi 802.11b/g USB Dongle]
See Also