Sometimes WiFi will stop working almost for no reason. Seems that little antenna key (near Backspace) does something (with, or perhaps without, the Fn modifier key).
The last time I resorted to using it was at a BIOS prompt, early during the boot.
WiFi for the Inspiron 3135 does work under Debian Jessie. Well, mine does. I did the upgrade from wheezy to gain support for the newer hardware; I don't remember WiFi working on this laptop under wheezy.
$ dmesg
4: Linux version 3.14-2-amd64 ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.8.3 (Debian 4.8.3-5) ) #1 SMP Debian 3.14.13-2 (2014-07-24)
29: DMI: Dell Inc. Inspiron 3135/001GW6, BIOS A02 01/03/2014
827: ath: phy0: WB335 1-ANT card detected
828: ath: phy0: Set BT/WLAN RX diversity capability
829: ath: phy0: Enable LNA combining
830: ath: phy0: ASPM enabled: 0x42
831: ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x60
832: ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map
833: ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00
834: ath: Regpair used: 0x60
835: usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb
836: ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
837: ieee80211 phy0: Atheros AR9565 Rev:1 mem=0xffffc90004880000, irq=32
$ ls /var/lib/dpkg/info/*list | egrep irmwa
/var/lib/dpkg/info/firmware-linux-free.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/firmware-linux-nonfree.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/firmware-realtek.list
One or more of those may be required; they are present on my system.
$ ls -la /sys/class/net/ | egrep wlan0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 7 09:38 wlan0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.3/0000:05:00.0/net/wlan0
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | head -5
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 22
model : 0
model name : AMD A6-1450 APU with Radeon(TM) HD Graphics
$ lspci -nn | grep 0280
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0036] (rev 01)
$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:45:C3:AB:CD:EF (invented sample data)
(typical iwlist report here)
So, yeah, this WiFi hardware is supported in Linux.
The touchscreen works as well as I'd expected, with few glitches, although I don't know how to get a right-click out of it. I'd say it is very useful, but does not take the place of an external USB mouse (I don't use the factory, integrated trackpad found below the spacebar).
With /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers specifying '-dpi 144':
:0 local /usr/bin/X :0 vt7 -dpi 144 -nolisten tcp
.. I find it fairly easy to use the touchscreen (no doubt it wastes valuable screen real-estate to do it that way).
host:/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d$ cat 92-touchscreen.conf
# touchscreen device
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "ELAN Touchscreen"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection
$ cat 91-b-custom-mouse.conf
# remaps buttons on external USB trackball
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Mouse Button Layout"
MatchProduct "Logitech USB Trackball"
MatchIsPointer "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Buttons" "9"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 0 3 0 0 0 0 2 7"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection
The ButtonMapping part seems essential. The rest is probably imitative of others' work; I don't remember.
$ cat 91-c-custom-mouse.conf
# disable TouchPad found below the spacebar
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Internal TrackPad"
MatchProduct "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "Ignore" "true"
EndSection