Wireless ... any ideas on how to get it going?

[Vormund]

Hola,

I'm trying to get nix on my laptop... first started off with Debian, and now Ubuntu. Debian at least installed the base OS, then stalled when trying to set up the package manager - Ubuntu hangs on the "Configuring network".

I'm using a tx1110us HP laptop... (series tx1000us), non-touch screen... and am at a loss as how to get it going.

Does anyone have any suggestions as how to get it working?

TIA

 

[kpmwrestler]

you probably need a driver for your network card.

 

[Vormund]

you probably need a driver for your network card.

Indeed I do...hah, kind of shortsighted post I made above.

This is the internal adapter:
Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (rev 01)

Using bcm43xx...following the docs, everything was good until it was time to get it running - no-go.

I'm trying this tonight, hopefully it'll work...

Any other suggestions are welcome, danke.

 

[Nick]

this site may be helpful:

Linux wireless LAN support http://linux-wless.passys.nl

 

[Vormund]

Thanks for the link...but it doesn't mean too much for me.

So I followed that guide above...so close.

They recommend getting the driver provided by the laptop manufacturer (in my case HP) - which I did, and the inf file was bcmwl6.inf versus the bcmwl5.inf they used in the example. Using ndiswrapper worked fine, but when I tried modprobe ndiswrapper with the bcmwl6 driver, it had a few pages of errors.

...so I tried their package, figuring since it's the same chipset, maybe... The driver it used was the bcmwl5.inf - installed fine, detected the wifi card properly, and even the test of iwlist scanning worked!

So that's where I'm at now. I loaded KDE, went to the networking config, and it showed the two cards - eth0 and wif0 - but the wireless was disabled. I enabled it via that interface, which took ~minute, and it then said enabled. I went ahead and entered the local network info, applied the settings, and tried google.com - no host found.

So what I need now... can you tell me how to view the network status from within KDE? (Like on Windows, you have the icon in the status bar which you can view the connection status, packets sent, etc.). I have no idea if it's really connecting - I just know that it has the info which is needed to connect (the essid and encryption type/key). Ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Vormund]

So what I need now... can you tell me how to view the network status from within KDE? (Like on Windows, you have the icon in the status bar which you can view the connection status, packets sent, etc.). I have no idea if it's really connecting - I just know that it has the info which is needed to connect (the essid and encryption type/key). Ideas?

To bump da' thread a bit after some time, I'm sure this is easy for anyone somewhat familiar with Linux - when I run "iwlist scan", I can see my (encrypted) network and the neghibors (unencrypted) network.

Can anyone tell me either how to connect / test a connection from the console, and/or (preferably) a way to do it from within KDE?

By the quoted statement, I just meant that in KDE's wireless setup, I entered the encryption information and applied the changes, but I have no idea what needs done otherwise, nor how to test it.

TIA!

 

[farinha]

Hi.
Have you configured the DNS server? Go to the console and type "ping 216.239.59.104", this is google's ip address. If you get an answer it means that you have access to the internet but the DNS server isn't configured. You have to introduce your isp's dns server address in the configuration of your network.
By the way, the dns server is the one who translates the url, for example Google, to a ip address, 216.239.59.104 for google. The ip address is what identifies a computer in a network.

I hope this helps.

 

[bmitchell73]

Don't bother with anything confusing. Just read this: davidwatson.org: Broadcom BCM4306 on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn