Wireless = Hopeless???

[Lord_Dirk]

A few months ago I decided to put kubuntu (feisty fawn at the time) on my Dell Inspiron 11150 Laptop. Being my first experience with such, I am very confused and exasperated with its quirks. My major concern is how the wireless internet will NOT work. This being a recurrent problem for many months, I have given up and am now willing to switch back to windows if i cannot find a solution. I am trying to connect to my wireless WPA-PSK network (netgear), and i don't know what to do. I hear about ndiswrapper and such, but not even a computer whiz friend was able to get me online using it and the driver which is a broadcom somethin or other. If anyone feels led so much as to help me out, I would be very grateful.

[integr8e]

Re: Wireless = Hopeless

Your WIFI card wouldn't happen to have a Broadcom bcm43xx chip by chance, would it?

You may also want to check out this thread, and this one too.

[lingenfr]

Re: Wireless = Hopeless

Integrate gave good advice, however, if you use the restricted drivers method, you will only get 11mbs. Not too nifty for a 54mbs card. In order to be all you can be, you need to run ndiswrapper.

This appears to be a good how-to that is pretty close to what I do myself with my multiple Broadcom cards:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...eisty_No-Fluff

Fear not, the Broadcom cards are fiddly, but once you get them going, they are pretty reliable. There are a few FUD-spreaders here. Don't pay attention to them as my guess is that they are creating their own problems attempting tasks beyond their knowledge and constantly tinkering with their machines. Get it working and then stick to applications, etc from the standard repositories and you will generally be fine. Good luck.

[Lord_Dirk]

Re: Wireless = Hopeless

Yes thanks a bunch! I'll need to make sure that my card is what you specified, but the tutorial you guided me to certainly helps. The major problem is all the apt-get commands... how is it supposed to download it if i cant connect to the internet in the first place? My only option is to find the file on a different computer and use my flashdrive to transfer the file. Am I mistaken that this is what must be done?

[integr8e]

Re: Wireless = Hopeless

Here is an excerpt from the link I provided:

Ubuntu 7.10 now has bcm43xx firmware installation integrated into the Restricted Driver Manager. This makes the process of obtaining and installing the firmware far easier than in previous releases.

1) Open the System -> Administration -> Restricted Driver Manager and you will see that under the Firmware drop down arrow it says Firmware for Broadcom 43xx chipset family.

2) Tick the box under Enabled to enable the firmware.

3) You will now be prompted to Enable the Firmware, click Enable Firmware to continue. After enabling the universe repository, the bcm43xx-fwcutter package will be installed.

4) After installation you will be prompted to specify the location of the driver file that contains the firmware. You can either use a local file or download some compatible firmware from the Internet, where a suggested URI is pre-filled.

5) If you have an Internet connection available select Download from the Internet and click Ok to proceed.

6) If you are unable to download the firmware directly then there are few alternative methods of obtaining the firmware. This involves finding a Windows driver file and using it as a local file in step 4 above.

/!\ In Ubuntu 7.10, the bcm43xx driver uses v3 firmware only. You will not be able to use v4 firmware at this time.

Some possible resources are:

*

The most reliable firmware source is the one that is recommended by the open source driver developers because this has had the most testing time and is actively maintained. You can obtain this version of the firmware from [WWW] linuxwireless.org.
*

A Windows Driver CD that came with the card or on the pre-installed Windows partition. This driver firmware will likely already be at least a few months old and might not work with the firmware extraction tool.
*

The card manufacturer's website may provide a file to download. Once again, this driver might not work with the firmware extraction tool.

Once you've enabled the card's driver, you can connect to the internet and install ndiswrapper.

[lingenfr]

Re: Wireless = Hopeless

Not really, the restricted driver manager downloads the firmware. I believe that the DVD and the 'alternate' CD have what you need. I would suggest having a friend download the DVD and burn it for you. One of the changes in Gutsy is that the default install includes your DVD/CD as a repository. Kind of handy for your situation. Myself, I have a 50' network cable that I stretch from my wireless router (an ethernet port) to the wired port on my Broadcom-wireless-equipped machine and do it that way. I find that easier, but maybe not for you. As I said, it is a bit of a pain, but once you are done, mine have been pretty solid. I got rid of all vestiges of network-manager-kde, etc and went with WICD. Happy camper. Good luck.