FIXED: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

[pablo173]

I just acquired a Dell Mini 9 netbook with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. But ultimately I want to install Kubuntu 11.04. For the time being I've been running 11.04 on the Mini 9 from an image on a USB stick, and it looks very nice. But I've been unable to connect to my wireless router. Under Windows connecting to my Wi-Fi router was a breeze, but under Kubuntu 11.04 it looks very complex.

Can anybody walk me thru the Wi-Fi setup procedure? Why can't Kubuntu make it as simple as Windows did with a Wi-Fi setup wizard?

Thanks in advance.

[arochester]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

What is the output of:
lspci
(normally the line starting: Network Controller)
or
lsusb

(That's l for Lemur and not I for India)

[pablo173]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

>lspci yields "Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)"

[oshunluvr]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Search this forum on removing network manager and replacing it with WICD.

[arochester]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Do you have in your Menu an item called "Restricted Drivers" or " Additional Drivers" or something like that?

Does that detect your card?

If it does you only have to activate the card and reboot. It can take a while...

[pablo173]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Thanks, arochester, there is such a menu item. But when I tried to activate the driver, I got a System Error E: "Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages". Should I have made a wired ethernet connection to download the driver?

[Snowhog]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

But when I tried to activate the driver, I got a System Error E: "Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages"

Sounds like you have one or more packages installed, from one or more third-party repositories (or .deb packages download/installed from the 'Net) that contain/introduce dependency conflicts with the Additional Drivers application.

Do you have non-standard repositories in use, or have you installed packages you 'downloaded' that were not available from the default repositories?

[pablo173]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

I haven't downloaded any packages. I know that somewhere there is a place to select/nonselect repositories, but the system setup is so complicated I don't remember where it is. Do I want to select or unselect any repositories?

You can hate Windows all you want, but at least their setup mechanism is relatively simple and intuitive.

[Snowhog]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Okay. Let's ensure that your running system is in a stable state. Open a console and type:

sudo apt-get update

This refreshes the package cache.

sudo apt-get check

This command is a diagnostic tool. It does an update of the package lists and checks for broken dependencies. If any broken dependencies exist, it should identify which ones they are.

sudo apt-get -f install

This command attempts to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.

sudo apt-get autoclean

This command removes .deb files for packages that are no longer installed on your system.

sudo apt-get clean

The same as above, except it removes all packages from the package cache. This may not be desirable if you have a slow internet connection, since it will cause you to redownload any packages you need to install a program. Useful however, if you are running short of space in your root ( / ) partition because of large numbers of downloaded .deb files within the package cache.

You might need to repeat this sequence of commands more than once until the apt-get -f install reports no errors.

[pablo173]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Went thru the list of "sudo apt-get" commands, then tried again to download the Broadcom wireless driver. The download quit after reaching 10%, several times. Going to reboot, possibly disk is full.

[pablo173]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Oh No!!! Now it's asking me for a login name and password. It isn't supposed to do that when you boot from a live USB image!!! Now I'm locked out!

[Guest]

Re: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Might be the same problem I had.

Do you use any encryption on your router at all?

If you're using WEP, change to WPA/WPA2 Personal (on your router) and that should solve it :-)

[pablo173]

Re: FIXED: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

Problem was a software bug in Natty (11.04). Fixed by using Kubuntu 11.10 instead.

[pablo173]

BREAKING NEWS: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

THE PROBLEM WAS CAUSED BY...

BUGGY SOFTWARE in Kubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 beta.

How did I resolve it? By changing to another distro.

Lubuntu is a faster, more lightweight and energy saving variant of Ubuntu using LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. Lubuntu 11.04 on a USB stick installed and activated the Broadcom STA driver flawlessly, although it took a long time to do it and required a wired internet connection. I had to activate the driver, configure the details of the WiFi connection, as well as enter my WPA key. But the wireless now works.

But the most impressive wireless setup was from KNOPPIX 6.7. I installed KNOPPIX on a USB stick using Windows 7 and Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.6.4.exe. KNOPPIX never asked me to select or activate a wireless driver, or configure a connection. All I had to do was to enter my WPA key, and away we went! No configuration tools required.

I am really impressed with KNOPPIX (and Lubuntu) for use on netbooks in many other ways, but that's another story.

[Guest]

Re: BREAKING NEWS: Wi-Fi Setup in Kubuntu 11.04

THE PROBLEM WAS CAUSED BY...

BUGGY SOFTWARE in Kubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 beta.

How did I resolve it? By changing to another distro.

Lubuntu is a faster, more lightweight and energy saving variant of Ubuntu using LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. Lubuntu 11.04 on a USB stick installed and activated the Broadcom STA driver flawlessly, although it took a long time to do it and required a wired internet connection. I had to activate the driver, configure the details of the WiFi connection, as well as enter my WPA key. But the wireless now works.

But the most impressive wireless setup was from KNOPPIX 6.7. I installed KNOPPIX on a USB stick using Windows 7 and Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.6.4.exe. KNOPPIX never asked me to select or activate a wireless driver, or configure a connection. All I had to do was to enter my WPA key, and away we went! No configuration tools required.

I am really impressed with KNOPPIX (and Lubuntu) for use on netbooks in many other ways, but that's another story.

Soapbox: Why can't the Broadcom STA driver just work by default on Kubuntu and Lubuntu like it does on Ubuntu?

Question: Can you provide the steps you took to at least get it to work for you in Lubuntu? Did you simply plug in a wired Internet connection and then run some commands, or what?