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--- news:start [2018-02-17 09:27] – XPS 13 jens
+++ news:start [2018-09-02 08:53] – New firmware jens
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== News ======
 ===== Current News =====
+==== 2018-09-02: Wifi firmware ====
+By now there is a new [[http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-atheros_20180518-1_all.deb|firmware package]] available from Debian, no more manual intervention is needed.
+==== 2018-02-20: Wifi disconnects solved ====
+If you depend on Wifi for your connectivity and the Wifi disconnects all the time it can get really irritating.
+After 3 days of intense searching I finally came across [[https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=229808|this post]] in the Arch Linux forums which describes exactly what to do so the disconnects finally stop. Ironically again Arch, maybe I should try that distribution for a change ;-)
+All in all I am still super happy with the XPS 13, great performance, great screen, great battery life. After solving the disconnects I can easily live with software rendering (for the time being) and I think even the Wifi power settings can be turned on again.
+Just to summarize the steps to get the disconnects solved:
+  * Download the latest Atheros ath10k firmware from https://codeload.github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/zip/master
+  * Make a backup of ''/lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174'' and delete the whole directory.
+  * Unpack the downloaded ZIP file and place the QCA6174 directory in ''/lib/firmware/ath10k/''
+  * Rename the latest firmware-X.bin files to remove the _WLAN* part.
+  * Place the latest (highest version) firmware-4.bin and firmware-6.bin files directly in ''/lib/firmware/ath10k/'' (I used softlinks).
+  * Reboot.
+  * Check with ''lshw -c Network'' if the latest firmware is loaded.
+As Buster is still young I assume this will be long solved until it will be released.
 ==== 2018-02-17: New challenge, XPS 13 ====
 I got myself a new challenge: a brand new Dell XPS 13 9370 (2018 model) Developer Edition (non-touch). I really love this notebook, thus far I have not found one single point of criticism (I am not a webcam user ;-)).
-It comes pre-installed with Ubuntu and even after just booting it and using it for about 10 minutes I remembered why I don't like Ubuntu. So I quickly prepared a Debian Stretch installer stick with non-free firmware. The notebook is very thin and has no USB A ports anymore, let alone a RJ45 connector for LAN. SO to install you depend on Wifi and for that the non-free firmware is really needed.
+It comes pre-installed with Ubuntu and even after just booting it and using it for about 10 minutes I remembered why I don't like Ubuntu. So I quickly prepared a Debian Stretch installer stick with non-free firmware. The notebook is very thin and has no USB A ports anymore, let alone a RJ45 connector for LAN. So to install you depend on Wifi and for that the non-free firmware is really needed.
 However, somehow the Stretch installer didn't like the firmware, not even the updated one. It was looking for a 3.0/firmware-5.bin whereas there are only 3.0/firmware-4.bin and 3.0/firmware-6.bin files available. And because I wanted to start using this great piece of hardware as soon as possible I became lazy and just used the Buster installer which works fine.