Over time, I tend to pile and pile up tasks that I want to complete in Debian, and instead of finishing any of the tasks, I keep rotating through the list hoping that something is going to turn out easier than what I've just failed to do.

Today, this method led to a big regression in my configuration. Namely, I lost the automatic bootup activation of my Wifi, which has up to now been one of my only successes on this system.

So I've got a gripe. I had a nice automatic Wifi working, and Debian erased it. Here's how.

We've got a baby on the way, so I decided that my top priority right now should be to get my webcam working.

So I started reading about my particular webcam and Debian, and I found several pages promising to get me going. One of these pages mentioned the need for an updated package called qc-usb-source. Before reading the rest of the article, I decided to use APT to check if I already had this package.

As root, I typed:

apt-cache search qc-usb-source

And I got a successful-looking result. But I wasn't quite sure if it was a successful result, because I also had an error. And I think the error was from my previous manipulation of APT preferences (these are in the file /etc/apt/preferences).

So I decided to try out some other APT commands first, just to make sure I got rid of the error, before proceeding with the rest of the article about the webcam was telling me to do.

And, woe is me, after undoing the preferences that I had recently manipulated back to their defaults, I typed in the following, as a test:

apt-get upgrade mutt

(I though this meant, "Advanced Packaging Tool: upgrade the 'mutt' email program." In fact, it appears to mean, "Advanced Packaging Tool: upgrade everything!" It ignored the "mutt".)

APT started upgrading every program in my entire system. To be fair, I realised what was happening, and I could have stopped it, but I thought "Well, why not? Let's get the newest versions of everything." The only problem came when the newest versions of everything included my kernel.

The entire upgrade only took about 45 minutes... but when it got to the kernel it gave me a message saying that after upgrading the kernel, it would have to "rebuild the modules dependency file" or something like that.

On top of that, Mr. Debian, who is supposed to allow you to replace kernels on-the-fly, even told me, Redmond-style, that I would have to reboot after this upgrade! Point against the spiral.

And indeed, when I rebooted, I sat through a painful series of requests for an IP address, and logged into my desktop to realise that I had no internet connection.

And that's where I am today. I was very disappointed, since, I repeat, getting my Wifi internet connection up automatically had to this point been my biggest accomplishment, and with a very standard command, I'm back to square one.

I will attempt to follow the same steps as previously to get my wifi connection during bootup, but I am afraid that my method is not very robust if it can be so easily knocked down.

I would also like to note that I am disappointed, because I can no longer claim to my Windows-loving friends that Debian never asks me to reboot.

Notes:

For the record: I've got a Logitech QuickCam Zoom.

APT is the Advanced Packaging Tool, used to download, install, and update most of your Debian applications.

I am using the 2.6 kernel. I do not compile my own kernel; I just installed a ready-made kernel image.