I was testing my Belkin USB WiFi dongle today and Debian wouldn’t use it and I was getting errors/issues to do with a faulty firmware.
Even after following a few guides online and installing different packages etc, I still couldn’t get it to work but I finally managed using the following method:
Add Contrib & Non-Free Repo’s:
nano /etc/apt/sources.list deb http://YOUR.CHOSEN.MIRROR squeeze main non-free contrib deb-src http://YOUR.CHOSEN.MIRROR squeeze main non-free contrib apt-get update
Install Latest Working Firmware (and tools):
apt-get install firmware-ralink wireless-tools
– OR –
Download manually: Wireless-Tools and ralink-Firmware
dpkg -i package.deb
Plug the WiFi Dongle in and test:
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist scan
All your local AP’s should wizz past on screen now.