[Debian] Set up wireless networking on a Lenovo T430 laptop

On a Lenovo T430 running Debian Wheezy and MATE desktop environment, the wireless networking was not working good even after installing the non-free drivers and Wicd, so you can install GNOME's good ol' network-manager instead.


First, edit /etc/apt/sources.list adding contrib and non-free sources:

deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

Then run as root:

apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi

modprobe -r iwlwifi ; modprobe iwlwifi

apt-get install network-manager network-manager-gnome

You should now be able to connect to wireless networks without issues. Having both Wicd and network-manager installed did not cause issues but you may remove the first one since you're not going to use it anyway