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Anyone help a Linux noob with ubuntu wireless networking?

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monk3yboy said:
This may sound dumb, but when I was first experimenting with Linux I got a similar message and I spent ages trying to find the driver when all I had to do is click (don't remember if it was left or right button) on the network icon and enable networking. Then it finally showed the available networks for me to connect to. For me it wasn't the driver, just me not knowing it wasn't enabled. Just a thought. Not sure if you already checked that part. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Yeah, tried that, no go.

It didn't sound dumb either as it took me awhile to find that option.

Thanks.

I think I'll give up on Ubuntu for another couple of years, XP runs well and I might try Win7 on there.

I've just got to work out how to get rid of grub now.

As I remember it its fix mbr from the windows recovery disk options, and then just delete the Ubuntu partition.

If that doesn't work I'll be back for more help.

Cheers all.
 
I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my Sony laptop and use a D-link DWLG630 pcmcia wireless card to access my router. Anyways when I set it up originally the only way I could connect to my router under Network Manager was to disable encryption. Are you using WEP or WPA? Since I wouldn't run unencrypted
I removed Network Manager and installed WICD and was able to connect to my encrypted network. I have been using WICD for 2 years now. Just a thought. Also you really should take this issue to the Ubuntu forums, specifically the Networking and Wireless forum. There is a wealth of knowledge over there concerning wireless problems of all kinds.
 
ManyBeers said:
I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my Sony laptop and use a D-link DWLG630 pcmcia wireless card to access my router. Anyways when I set it up originally the only way I could connect to my router under Network Manager was to disable encryption. Are you using WEP or WPA? Since I wouldn't run unencrypted
I removed Network Manager and installed WICD and was able to connect to my encrypted network. I have been using WICD for 2 years now. Just a thought. Also you really should take this issue to the Ubuntu forums, specifically the Networking and Wireless forum. There is a wealth of knowledge over there concerning wireless problems of all kinds.
Click to expand...

I dont think its the encryption as ubuntu dosnt see any networks, even my neighbours unencrypted one.

I dont think its a problem with the network either as various computers, phones, iPads, etc have all connected wireless to it before. Its definitely specific to this Ubuntu install.

I'll try WICD if theres an easy way for me to get it installed, but I've wasted far too much time on this as it is.

Cheers for that suggestion, I'll let you know how it goes.
 
OK, how do I download that? I cant get to any repositories on that computer as I have no network access under linux.

Is there a way I can download it under windows and put it on a USB stick?

I see a link to the source code, is that the same thing?
 
I'm not busy at all. It didn't list that as a dependency on my machine(I don't have it installed) :^/ Anyway, here it is...

http://ubuntuone.com/p/UDc/

If you need anything else downloaded, don't hesitate to ask. My connection's a little flaky, so I may not get it immediately, but I should be able to get what you need :^)
 
Well WICD didnt fix it.

I think its what Cynicst mentioned earlier.

I hate to bug you again but you couldnt help with firmware-b43-installer, could you.

I'll try that then give up, I hate not knowing what the hell I'm doing. :|
 
Here's the firmware-b43-installer package. It didn't show up in Synaptic, but I found it on the Debian site. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I guess use at your own risk. I also don't know if there's any dependencies involved...

http://ubuntuone.com/p/UDq/
 
lxskllr said:
Here's the firmware-b43-installer package. It didn't show up in Synaptic, but I found it on the Debian site. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I guess use at your own risk. I also don't know if there's any dependencies involved...

http://ubuntuone.com/p/UDq/
Click to expand...

It seems fine as far as dependencies go, I'm getting an error on install about failing to resolve mirror2.openwrt.org.

It looks like to install the firmware you have to have a network connection, but I cant get a network connection without the firmware.

I'm not sure if this is 😀 or 🙁 its certainly 😵
 
lxskllr said:
Ok, I think this page was linked earlier in the thread...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#b43 - No Internet access

Scroll down until you get to
b43 - No Internet access


Under that heading, it gives instructions for installing the binary drivers, as well as download links you can grab from another computer. You have b43-fwcutter already installed, so skip to the part about downloading, and installing the firmware.
Click to expand...


Yeah I still get

I get error 'cannot open input file wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o' in step 4
Click to expand...

And as I'm not sure how any of this works in linux I dont know whats wrong.

Theres a folder called driver in broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5 package that I downloaded with a file called wl_apsta.o but apart from that I'm lost.
 
Are you entering that by itself? It looks to me like it's a line break, and is part of the directory structure from the line above.

~$ sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o
 
lxskllr said:
Are you entering that by itself? It looks to me like it's a line break, and is part of the directory structure from the line above.

~$ sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o
Click to expand...


I'm entering

sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

the second line of part3
 
can you copy paste the exact commands and their output from the terminal? I suspect you are just mistyping or didnt put the files in the correct folder. Are you familiar with tab completion?

BTW, assuming you get this fixed, I would strongly recommend against using wubi. It will break your bootloader sooner or later and usually sooner rather than later. Its also a pita if you ever want to increase or decrease the virtual partition size, if you mess up (and you will) and need to recover files etc.

The regular ubuntu installer is as slick as wubi (at least if you are not using a fake raid for windows), I would advice to do a regular install, just boot off the cd (or USB stick). That way you are not dependant on windows filesystem working properly and windows and ubuntu are completely independent. Gives a slight but noticable performance boost too.
 
Assuming you're entering everything correctly, I don't know. Following a link on the installation page, I ran across this...

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

Check out the FAQ, especially the table of supported chips. It gives a command just above that table where you can see exactly what chip you have, and you can reference the table to see if it's explicitly supported. The table saying it isn't supported doesn't mean it /can't/ work, but it would be much less encouraging.
 
P4man said:
can you copy paste the exact commands and their output from the terminal? I suspect you are just mistyping or didnt put the files in the correct folder. Are you familiar with tab completion?

BTW, assuming you get this fixed, I would strongly recommend against using wubi. It will break your bootloader sooner or later and usually sooner rather than later. Its also a pita if you ever want to increase or decrease the virtual partition size, if you mess up (and you will) and need to recover files etc.

The regular ubuntu installer is as slick as wubi (at least if you are not using a fake raid for windows), I would advice to do a regular install, just boot off the cd (or USB stick). That way you are not dependant on windows filesystem working properly and windows and ubuntu are completely independent. Gives a slight but noticable performance boost too.
Click to expand...

I cant copy/paste over. I'll give you a quick rundown of the set up.

Windows 7 PC is all setup and working well, plugged into a 24" monitor with DVI and 17" monitor in portrait.

Slightly dysfunctional dual boot ubuntu/winXP pc is in bits and plugged into the 24" monitor via VGA.

I toggle the input key on the monitor to change between PC's, and when using Ubuntu on the 24" still have win7 on the 17".

I could very well be mistyping as I have no idea what those commands mean.
I put the files where it said in the instructions but I suppose there could be a problem there. As I said earlier, this is all new territory for me.
I'm not only nor familiar with tab completion, I'd go so far as to say I have no idea what it is, I thought it was something to do with guitars.:hmm:

If wubi is not a good idea is it possible to strip out everything but the WinXP install and start again? Seems a shame as wubi worked really well, I was impressed with that.

****EDIT.**** copy/pasted to text life, put text file on usb stick.

this is a copy/paste of what I entered.

sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
 
Last edited:
lxskllr said:
Assuming you're entering everything correctly, I don't know. Following a link on the installation page, I ran across this...

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

Check out the FAQ, especially the table of supported chips. It gives a command just above that table where you can see exactly what chip you have, and you can reference the table to see if it's explicitly supported. The table saying it isn't supported doesn't mean it /can't/ work, but it would be much less encouraging.
Click to expand...


It says "BCM4306 (Rev. 2 uses b43legacy, Rev. 3 uses b43)"

Lspci give me "broadcom corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless Lan Controller (rev 03)" so I think I'm good there.
 
Whooot!!!

Posting this from Ubuntu. Thank a lot guys.

Turns out the "wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o" file on the ussb stick was iffy.The stick is throwing up errors in windows now as well.

Again, awesome stuff guys, there was zero chance of me sorting that out on my own.
 
I'm glad you got it working :^)

If you decide to use Ubuntu as a primary O/S, give some serious consideration to using a normal install as opposed to wubi. I haven't used it enough to know if P4man is correct about it hosing installs, but it is a kind of "weird" way to run. I instinctively don't trust it do to the nature of the setup. Setting up a dual boot is easy if you want to keep XP, or if it were me, I'd just wipe XP and run Ubuntu :^D

Have fun with your new O/S. Ubuntu's pretty cool, and it has some nice little touches that make day to day computing nice :^)
 
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