Device Drivers

Hi
Welcome to the community!
Well in Linux external drivers are usually compiled ( like C++ programs ) and then loaded using modprobe ( which stands for module probe ) , so instead of calling them drivers we should call them modules.
On to the problem with the broadcom cards,just run : jockey-gtk ( for ubuntu ) or jockey-kde ( for kubuntu ),that should list any extra module that needs to be installed.
Also read : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing BCM43xx drivers : for more details.

About your N3 card,it should be ideally supported out of the box,but no worries,can you list the contents of the downloaded drivers in a paste at : www.paste.ubuntu.com
Thanks

Please read this too : http://roklandllc.blogspot.com/2009/08/rokland-n3-is-plug-and-play-with-ubuntu.html

When you say "run jockey-gtk", where do I run it? In terminal? Told you I was a newbie!

OK, I ran jockey-gtk and it shows the drivers are installed for the Broadcom card and it works, and the push button turns it on and off, but the button stays lit even when the wifi is switched off. I guess I can live with that. I'll try plugging in the n3 again. Thanks.

Ahhh, that de-mystifies a lot for me too. Thanks :)

Sure no problem,come visit us at #ubuntu or #kubuntu on freenode via the IRC,youll be able to get real time support there :
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chatirc : IRC description
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat : How to get onto the IRC
im under the nick shadeslayer

Hi again :)

If this question is solved please could you click at the button under the comment that best answered it? That would make this thread available to anyone else with the same problem in the future and helps the community out quite a bit :)

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)

When I plug in the N3 wifi card, the blue light on it just blinks rapidly and never connects to any networks. When it works on a windows machine, the blue light flickers occasionally with network activity. I know in windows its possible to uninstall and reinstall drivers - is this possible and/ or necessary in Ubuntu? Or, how do I install the drivers that I downloaded from the manufacturer? Thanks.

Ok well you need to give me the contents of the downloaded tarball,like what does the tarball contain?
Does it have CMakeLists.txt or ./configure files,just run : ls -la : in the unpacked driver folder ( the linux one of course ) and pastebin it to http://paste.ubuntu.com
(ls -la is to be run in a terminal )
Also i am going offline in a few minutes,so i would advise you to use the IRC

I'm having problems setting up the IRC, and since I don't know what you would need to see in the tarball, here's a link to the drivers:

http://rokland.com/store/drivers.php?osCsid=66fa3dabe785f59db1a7ba28f3d7d3

Choose the n3 installation CD download, as it contains Linux drivers.

Please let me know what I would need to do to make the n3 work. Thanks.

Hi
I downloaded the package,please read this : http://paste.ubuntu.com/414142/ : carefully for installing the driver.
In order to use it effectively there is a Web UI provided ( i think ),the tarball 2008_0925_RT2870_Linux_STA_WebUI_v1.4.0.0.tar.bz2 contains the UI,run : chmod a+x install.sh;./install.sh : for installing the UI ( all of the above in a terminal )
You'll need to unpack the 2 tarballs in order to accomplish this

Hi :)

Err what commands do we need to use to do that?
Sorry i know i should know this
Apols & regards from
Tom :)

@Tom To unpack the tarballs? you dont need a command to do that,just unzip them using the gui :D
If you are a command line enthusiast then use : tar xvfz filename.tar.gz : from a terminal

Hi :)

Lol, i was expecting that to be more complex somehow. Ok, so then use the command-line for

chmod a+x install.sh;./install.sh

Do i need to cd into a certain folder or is it ok from anywhere?
Regards form
Tom :)

I found the problem - all I needed to do was re-format the PC and re-install windows. Now everything works again!

Seriously, I'm willing to give this Ubuntu thing a try, but all this stuff about tar balls and WebUIs is making my head spin. I thought this was Linux for humans.

Is there any way to install hardware drivers without having to learn all that gibberish?

@Tom Yes youll need to cd to the unpacked folder

@casahygeia Im sorry your hardware is not working out of the box,but yes linux can be tough sometimes,but your fortunate enough to have drivers available for your hardware,some of the newer hardware might not be supported out of the box as drivers for them will not be available,please give ubuntu another chance if youre up for it,i hope you will get it working again.

Hi :)

I have been using Ubuntu for about 3 years now and never had to use any of the stuff that has cropped up in this thread. All my hardware just magically works and that is the experience of most people that use linux these days.

I linked to this thread because in the question you said "I went and downloaded the Linux drivers for it from Rokland.com" which made me suspect that some interesting commands might be needed.

Ok, this is going to look like i am "having a go at you". I'm not. Your reaction is completely understandable given the circumstances and added to the mis-information you have been fed outside of this forum. Most of us run (or ran) a dual-boot system so that we could move to linux at our own pace.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
At first being able to boot into linux for the one or 2 things we have found are faster there and then back into Windows. Amazingly quickly that switches to only booting back into Windows for 1 or 2 things that we still didn't know how to do in linux. Running a dual-boot system makes the whole machine very much more robust because each one can help fix problem if they occur in the other. Also when Windows falls over or becomes unbearably slow the machine is still usable

Hardware manufacturers like to make things difficult.
It would be sooo easy for them to put resources into 1 OpenSource driver which would then be easily modified by the linux community to work in any of the 8 or so linux families & on Mac too. Instead of that they insist on trying to get Windows Programmers to write something proprietary (=ClosedSource) for linux (which they are unfamiliar with) so that no-one can bug-fix it or adapt it for other versions. Often they will then write a separate driver for Macs. The whole thing is completely crazy & very inefficient.

Later they throw up their hands in horror and say they can only support Windows because they can only afford to develop & bug-fix drivers for "the" Windows platform (which requires different drivers for Win7, Vista, Xp ... ) and can't afford to develop "all the different drivers needed for linux" but just 1 OpenSource driver covers the whole lot.

Meanwhile, linux usage continues to increase exponentially so by refusing to develop 1 OpenSource driver the hardware manufacturers cut themselves out of the fastest growth market in IT today, given the economic downturn it's possibly the only growth market anywhere.

The argument is that by keeping everything secret & ClosedSource "obviously" their drivers will be safe from viruses & other malware. Sadly this argument completely fails in the light of real world experience. It is Windows systems that constantly suffer from malware & bugs while linux systems run smoother, faster and safer because the software is OpenSource and has many more people scrutinising the code "more eyeballs on the code" so potential vulnerabilities get fixed faster, usually before getting compromised.

The irony is that linux gets the blame! lol

I hope this experience has not put you off linux. The migration can be tough, too tough for most people but a dual-boot makes it more possible.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Well after doing some checking around it appears that Ubuntu is still very much in its infancy, especially with regard to device drivers and hardware support. There is no device manager, like in Windows, which facilitates installation and removal of drivers.

Still, I'm willing to try to get this to work. When you say "unpack the tar balls", what does that mean? I think it refers to some kind of "zip" file, but where do I place the unpacked folders. On the desktop? Sorry, but you're dealing with a total noob here.

Hi :)

I would make a folder, lets call it "Wiifi" on the desktop and put the "tar.bz2" (=tarball) into that. Then open the folder and double-click on the tarball. A tarball is like a zip file. So drag&drop the contents of the tarball into that folder.

Then get to a command-line
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal#Starting%20a%20Terminal
and type in (or copy&paste using the mouse)

cd ~/Desktop/Wiifi
chmod a+x install.sh;./install.sh

I am not certain what a Web UI is or how it works. UI = User Interface so i guess it might open a page on your web-browser. That is often the way to access a router's configuration/preferences file over a network so i guess that makes sense.

After that i get a bit hazy as i have not had to do this before & i am not sure what the stuff in
http://paste.ubuntu.com/414142/
is about. It appears to be code inside a coding bracket but the only time i have used stuff like that is to copy&paste onto a command-line. Clearly that is not what is required here so i am baffled. The link appears to be something to copy&paste into a text-file & then i really don't know what to do with it. Perhaps it looks a lot like the configuration/preferences file that has presumably opened in firefox. Perhaps the aim is to make the config file look like that?

I am just guessing tho

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again

Take a box. Any box and guess what is in it. You are not allowed to open the box and you are not allowed to read the delivery note on the side of the box. Now tell me what is in the box (without touching it)? That is the option most hardware manufacturers give to linux.

Give the box to your friend called Windows. Your friend is allowed to read the delivery note and look inside the box. Your friend gets paid some money with the box so that they have time to read the label. The people that sent the box send someone around to unpack the box for your friend and they pay your friend for the privilege. They plead to be allowed to put your friend's logo on the box and pay your friend for that. Anytime someone uses anything in the box they are expected to pay your friend. So, your friend is supporting boxes better?

Regards from
Tom :)

@Tom Well youll need to unpack the zipped file first using the file roller ( in gnome ) or Ark in KDE,in KDE if you right click a zipped file it shows a option called unzip file here autodetect folder,so choose that option ( in KDE or similar in gnome ),and then cd to the install.sh file and do the chmod commands as specified above
The paste i linked you to is a Read Me file,it has all the install instructions clearly listed,please go through it line by line and revert back if you have problems
Another solution might be to install linux-backports-modules-wireless to get extra modules,but im not entirely sure that it will work

hi :)

Goign up to the top-taskbar and clicking on

System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager

and using either search tool to find and install

"linux-backports-modules-wireless"

sounds like the normal sort of thing i am much more used to doing. The search tools are great at looking through package/program descriptions as well as titles so it lets me be a lot more vague about what i want the system to do.

Ahah, now i understand about the
http://paste.ubuntu.com/414142/
The really useful stuff starts on about line numbered 56

Thanks for this
Regards from
Tom :)

@casahygeia Can you please try out a live cd and check if installing linux-backports-modules-wireless from synaptic gets your card to work?
Regards

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Since the laptop is old and I don't really care about it, I went ahead and loaded 9.04 and the card works! Then I "upgraded" it to 9.10 and the card stopped working.

So it definitely works, I just need to try your suggestion to get it to work in 9.10. I'll let you know...

Thanks.

I just went ahead without the live cd and installed the linux-backports-modules-wireless from synaptics and......success! The n3 now works in 9.10. This card has astonishing range - I should buy one for each of you two for helping out. Thanks!

@casahygeia Oh thats awesome! I came across the package while trying to solve a similar wifi issue for someone in #kubuntu,im sorry that we confused you with make files and tarballs in the beginning,also please mark what solved your question in the comments so that this thread is available to others as well

Regards

@casahygeia Oh thats awesome! I came across the package while trying to solve a similar wifi issue for someone in #kubuntu,im sorry that we confused you with make files and tarballs in the beginning,also please mark what solved your question in the comments so that this thread is available to others as well

Regards

WooooHoooo, congrats :))
Welcome to linux-land, especially the Ubuntu corner :))

You have probably noticed the generic name for the module so it should work in other versions of gnu&linux such as Mandriva, openSUSE, Fedora, RedHat and so on.

Often a K at the front of a package indicates that the package needs the KDE desktop (Kubuntu) while a G often indicates that the Gnome desktop is needed. Ubuntu uses the Gnome one. Gtk in a name indicates that either Xfce or Gnome are required. Xubuntu uses the Xfce desktop environment. Most packages, such as OpenOffice, can be used with any of the desktop environments so its the same in Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, RedHat and so on.

If you got bored of the Gedit text-editor and fancied trying Kate instead then you can install it but it would ask you if it could install a huge amount of "dependencies" that it would would need to be able to work. You would effectively drag in almost the entire KDE desktop.

So if you were tired of Gedit then it would be better to use Syaptic to search for text-editors & then pick one that either started with G or had gtk in the name or else just any that didn't have a K at the front.

With Windows when you want to try a new program you usually have to either pay for it or else use a pirated version, a "cracked copy". With pirated programs you can never be sure of what extra stuff has been added and may often end up getting malware or viruses. Even if you do get a legit copy then you will be often be expected to search around the internet to download it from a site you have probably never seen before. It is quite common for malware agencies to make sites that like the real thing but that just end up downloading malware onto your machine. Users get the blame for going to the wrong sites but how are they supposed to know which are the legit sites without prior experience of that particular site?

With linux we use package managers such as Synaptic or Software Centre that share the same lists of already installed programs and also share lists of approved sites (=repositories) to download programs/packages from. Programs generally have to go through some sort of approval process before being allowed to sit in the repositories (=repos) & generally go through alpha & beta testing before being approved. Theoretically complaints about a package could lead to it getting removed from the repos although generally they just get bug-fixed.

In Windows there is no built-in way of updating programs, drivers, codecs & other packages. Their update process is only about updates to the OS itself (and notice they are almost always called "security updates" although it is often about MS's secuity not the users or the machine's security). So often when you open a program such as Adobe Reader a pop-up appears saying there is a new version or updates are available (again "security updates")

In linux the package managers update all the programs, kernel modules (these contain the drivers amongst other things), shared libraries, codecs, add-ons and other packages. You can set how often & when (even down to the time-of-day) that this update process happens. Although it defaults to asking your permission to download & install updates you can make it just go-ahead automatically. No constant pop-ups demanding you update NOW. No demands to make the updates automatic. Most of the linux updates are about increasing functionality as security is written in right from the start from the ground-up.

So, once you update a linux system that means everything about the system is up-to-date. After a Windows update you could well still have programs and drivers that have known existing flaws even tho "security patches" have been released.

oops, sorry! I meant this to be a quick congrats!
Apols and regards from
Tom :)

Tom, thanks for the info and Rohan thanks for your thorough efforts. Very professional support for a free product! Now all I gotta do is figure out this lighted on-off push button for the built-in wifi on this HP ze2113us laptop. The button works - it turns on and off the built-in wifi - but the light seems to do whatever it wants. Its pretty minor, but nice if it worked right. Thanks again!

Hi :)

You're welcome. It's been fun & helped me work out how to re-write a couple of things in community documentation.

There was sometihng for getting keyboard lights to do some fairly strange things ...

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

PS yeh, i also thought Rohan was a star :)

Oh this is nothing ;) , i do whatever i can to help,btw you might be able to turn off the light with the ' xset ' command,but youll probably have to set it everytime you login etc. and broadcom are not that well supported with the default kernel,this particular issue might be resolved in lucid

Hi :)

Doing things to help others is great & does make you a star. It might even help bug-fix Bug#1 which would be great (also perhaps inevitable) imo

To find out what options any command offers you just add the tag "-h" or sometimes "--help" after the command to get a quick guide cheat-sheet on how to use the command. There are "man" (=manual) pages too but i find the quick help thing is usually enough to work out roughly what the command is for. In this case try

xfix -h

Since your system now has different functionality addd to it that mine doesn't have it would be a bit pointless me just copying the output from my machine.

I think you can add command-line actions into the normal login process by

System - Administration - Services

although i have only really used that to switch off things like BlueTooth and other stuff my machine doesn't have. You might need to make the command into a service by right-click on Applications and then

"Edit Menus" - "+ New Item"

then write the command-line command you worked out into the "command" box and make-up a good name for it & perhaps add a comment. I think you can edit those details later.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I thought you guys might want to check out my blog on this:

http://947thewave.radio.com/2010/04/16/ubuntu-provides-a-new-life-for-an-old-slow-pc/

I've added a comment about the solved problem. Thanks again!

Hi :)

Nice blog :) I was slightly afraid of what you might have written as i think i was a bit tooo harsh early in the thread!

As always i wrote a long comment but tried to keep it to the basics. Possibly my comment might be rejected by moderators thinking it's advertising.

Thanks for doing that. I think it all helps
Congrats and regards from
Tom :)