Help with Ubuntu Wireless

steveland?

Hi folks,
Just installed Ubuntu on my Advent 7027 laptop.

It has a built in Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection card using the Broadcom BCM4301 chipset.

Now apparently this chipset doesn't have Linux drivers (well, according to the fact that there's a petition for the drivers and all floating around...) but the laptop picks up the wlan0 connection and when I try to configure the wlan it finds the SSID of my network so I know it's picking up something...

I've configured it to activate the wlan, put in my WEP Key, enabled DHCP and saved all the settings using the Networks option in the System>Administration menu.

I can't get online with it at all

For a little while I could ping 192.168.1.1 (Linksys WAG54G router, set to Mixed mode with WEP enabled) but no longer, just tells me the network is unreachable at the moment...

Running ifconfig gives me the following output:

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:03:0D:02:85:E1
        inet6 addr: fe80::203:dff:fe02:85e1/64 Scope:Link
        UP BROADCAST MULTICAST   MTU:1500   Metric:1
        RX Packets:0  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 frame:0 
        TX Packets:0  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 carrier:0
        collisions:0 txqeuelen:1000
        RX bytes:0 (0.0b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0b)
        Interrupt:10 Base address:0Xcc00

lo      Link encap:Local Loopback
        inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
        inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
        UP LOOPBACK RUNNING   MTU:16436   Metric:1
        RX Packets:5934  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 frame:0 
        TX Packets:5934  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 carrier:0
        collisions:0 txqeuelen:0
        RX bytes:537448 (524.8 KiB)  TX bytes:537448 (524.8 KiB)

wlan0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:4B:2E:1D:A5
        inet6 addr: fe80::290:4bff:fe2e:ida5/64 Scope:Link
        UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST   MTU:1500   Metric:1
        RX Packets:0  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 frame:0 
        TX Packets:0  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0 carrier:0
        collisions:0 txqeuelen:1000
        RX bytes:0 (0.0b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0b)
        Memory:dbff8000-dbff9fff

Anyone have any ideas?

Steveire

Is it breezy or dapper? I think dapper has more wireless support by default.

steveland?

I forget how to check... it's 5.10 anyway

steveland?

Oh by the way iwconfig wlan0 output:

IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed  Frequescy:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100  Signal Level:-10 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:24   Missed beacon:0

Steveire

That's breezy badger. Dapper drake is out on June1st, and you can upgrade to it now if you want by changing your sources.list and running apt-get dist-upgrade or something like that. I think there's an app called NetworkManager or something that might help. You want this really: http://ubuntuforums.org

philologos

did you install the wireless card using ndiswrapper?

if not just download / or get the broadcom dll and sys files from your pc or a website, put them physically onto your PC and here are some links that will help

http://fedoranews.org/mediawiki/index.php/How_To_Install_Your_Broadcom_BCM4318_Using_Ndiswrapper

skip down to "Create a folder in your home directory (dont name it since we will trash it) and download the driver needed from acer website:"

and instead of using /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper just use sudo ndiswrapper

PM me if you need help

or this tutorial should work well enough for ubuntu

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=125537
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3020_5020/driver/80211g.zip

no hold on that tutorial works great on Breezy, and i use ndiswrapper on Dapper at the minute
take the driver files .sys and dll out of the zip there its for your broadcom laptop driver

steveland?

Cheers man but that's the BCM4318 (I think that's the G-version of mine), mine is the 4301.

I assume it should be the same sort of thing but will the same drivers work for me here?

I didn't use ndiswrapper, it was automatically detected after my Dapper upgrade and after I installed network-manager

philologos

by assumption I assume that all the broadcom wireless laptop drivers should work the same, so try it with the ubuntu tutorial, I have one on this HP laptop

steveland?

Well I was having a bit of trouble getting it to connect with Dapper so I just reinstalled Breezy, Googled for the .inf and .sys files, copied them to my laptop and then used the instructions on the ubuntuforums link you mentioned.

She's up and running nae bother.

Thanks a lot for yer help Jakkass and Stevire

philologos

Dapper involves a lot of hacking around to get it working on the net (wireless of course) because Ubuntu staff tried so hard to make a driver (which blatently didnt work). I had to remove this driver first from the system then install ndiswrapper instead of their wireless tools package in synaptic and then carried out the ubuntu breezy setup as per usual.

MarkR

Hmm... I have a Dell D600 with a Intel Pro/Wireless lan 2100 3a mini pci adapter that works out of the box with both hoary, breeze and dapper. They different cards?