Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

[Rijan]

Dear all,

I have installed Kubuntu 9.10 on a Dell Latitude E6400 alongside Windows XP and though XP can see
my wireless network automatic, Kubuntu seems to miss it. Even the Wireless tab in the connection
manager is greyed out. Has it something to do with drivers for the wireless network card (Dell Wireless 1510
Wireless-N WLAN Mini-Card)?

Earlier this week I was succesful in deploying Ubuntu and Xubuntu on a Dell Latitude D630; no problems at
all.

Thanks in advance,
Rijan Mulder

[arochester]

Re: Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

According to http://www.linlap.com/wiki/dell+latitude+e6400 there can be different wireless controllers for this laptop. But which chip do you have?

Open Konsole Terminal Program and input:

lspci

That will list pci devices

What does it say against Network Controller?

[Rijan]

Re: Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

I checked:

0c:00.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Lan Controller (rev 01)

And as stated it's the 1510.

I saw in the link that this is no good; is there an alternative driver that would work? or another solution?

Rijan

[arochester]

Re: Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

1) Have a look on your menu for something called either Hardware Drivers or Restricted Hardware Drivers. Does Broadcom appear on that? If it does just click on the Activate button. Caution! It can be so slow that it does not seem to be working - so allow it plenty time.

2) Have a look at "How To: Broadcom Wireless in Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope" on http://caytin.wordpress.com/2009/07/...nty-jackalope/

[jtsmith73]

Re: Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

This is pretty easy. With a wired connection, open up your hardware profiles and Kubuntu may see that you need to acquire the proprietary "broadcom-sta" driver. If it's there, you can just "activate" it and you're good to go. If you don't have a wired connection (which was my problem), from another computer go to http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php and download the tarball to a usb key along with the "Readme.txt" (that is the instruction on how to install the broadcom-sta driver from the command line). Follow the directions and it will immediately just "work". I use the default network manager without any issues.

Cheers

[Rijan]

Re: Wireless network detection on a Dell E6400

All,

Couldn't find anything about hardware drivers in the menu nor did the installation of broadcom stuff
succeed: ran into permission problems and hadn't got a clue where to install it; the README wasn't very clear and that's an understatement.

For all kind of other reasons I will stop with Kubuntu and stick to Ubuntu/Xubuntu on my Dell D630. I like the Gnome desktop afterall more than the KDE.

Nevertheless I would like to thank you all for giving a helping hand. At least I know that these forums
are very helpfull. Thanks again!!!

Rijan