Wireless connections are not working

Open a terminal (Applications, Accessories, terminal) and type "lspci" without the quotes and copy and paste the result here.
This will give us the list of your devices so that we can see what wireless card you have.

andy@andy-laptop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [Geforce 6150 Go] (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PMU (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev f1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev f1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)

Can you see the wireless network device in Network manager (the menu that comes up if you (right) click on the system tray icon)? At what stage does it fail?

Is there a system tray icon about proprietary drivers? If so, can you click on it, and make sure that the driver for the wireless card is in use?

[I have a Broadcom 4318 wireless chipset in my laptop--I know that for 8.04, the "bcm43xx" driver has been replaced by "b43". It still works, for me, however, albeit with some failures (but it's a few years old, so I don't know that that's software rather than hardware)]

No wireless network device show in the network manager.

if you run the command "jockey" (or "jockey-kde" for kubuntu), does it offer you an option to install a driver for the card?

not for the Broadcom 4318 wireless... only NVIDIA graphics card...

Can you try:
sudo aptitude install b43-fwcutter
lsmod | grep b43
(post results)

If that doesn't show anything, try:
sudo modprobe b43

andy@andy-laptop:~$ sudo aptitude install b43-fwcutter
[sudo] password for andy:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
andy@andy-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep b43
b43 144420 0
ssb 34308 1 b43
rfkill 8592 1 b43
mac80211 165652 1 b43
led_class 6020 1 b43
input_polldev 5896 1 b43

andy@andy-laptop:~$ sudo modprobe b43
[sudo] password for andy:
andy@andy-laptop:~$

That suggests that the driver is loaded and everything. Can you post the contents of /etc/network/interfaces

andy@andy-laptop:~$ /etc/network/interfaces
bash: /etc/network/interfaces: Permission denied

Nope, that's a file, not a command. If you can find a way to attach files here, you can attach it, otherwise open it to show the contents, and copy and paste them here. (for example, you could use "cat /etc/network/interfaces").

andy@andy-laptop:~$ cat/etc/network/interfaces
bash: cat/etc/network/interfaces: No such file or directory

there is no file and no directory

No, there's a space in that command: "cat /etc/network/interfaces". So you're running the command "cat" (which, in this context, just shows you the content of the file) on the file "/etc/network/interfaces".

If it's easier, you can just open the text editor of your choice (e.g. gedit, or kate on KDE), and open the file /etc/network/interfaces

andy@andy-laptop:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth0

Actually, I will need to see the output of following command:

lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4:4328

If it shows up, here is what you need to do:

1. Install the ndiswrapper, ndisgtk packages

2. Download the driver from the following URL:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36501-37000/sp36684.exe
Extract it

3. System> Administration> Windows Wireless Devices and select the *.inf file to install the driver.

andy@andy-laptop:~$ lspci -vvn | grep 14e4:4328
03:00.0 0280: 14e4:4328 (rev 03)

how do I extract the file once it is downloaded?
2. Download the driver from the following URL:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36501-37000/sp36684.exe
Extract it

Try to use this URL then:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/176326/sp36684.zip

(I would say the b43 drivers are a better bet, but I'll leave it to you.)

This driver is allowing me to finally see the wireless networks but they go in and out... Will the other driver work better? If so what do i need to do next to get the b43 driver to work?

It looked like they were loaded before, so I don't actually know why it wasn't showing up in Network Manager...

do the following command and post the output:

lsmod

I suspect that you might need to put some driver into the blacklist.

what do I need to do next?

do the following command and post the output:

lsmod

andy@andy-laptop:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
ipv6 267780 10
rfcomm 41744 2
l2cap 25728 13 rfcomm
ppdev 10372 0
powernow_k8 16704 1
cpufreq_conservative 8712 0
cpufreq_userspace 5284 0
cpufreq_powersave 2688 0
cpufreq_ondemand 9740 1
cpufreq_stats 7104 0
freq_table 5536 3 powernow_k8,cpufreq_ondemand,cpufreq_stats
sbs 15112 0
container 5632 0
bay 6912 0
dock 11280 1 bay
sbshc 7680 1 sbs
iptable_filter 3840 0
ip_tables 14820 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 16132 1 ip_tables
parport_pc 36260 0
lp 12324 0
parport 37832 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
af_packet 23812 4
snd_hda_intel 344728 3
snd_pcm_oss 42144 0
snd_mixer_oss 17920 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 78596 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 11400 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_hwdep 10500 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_seq_dummy 4868 0
psmouse 40336 0
serio_raw 7940 0
snd_seq_oss 35584 0
joydev 13120 0
snd_seq_midi 9376 0
snd_rawmidi 25760 1 snd_seq_midi
evdev 13056 8
snd_seq_midi_event 8320 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 54224 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
k8temp 6656 0
pcspkr 4224 0
snd_timer 24836 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 9612 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd 56996 17 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 8800 1 snd
usbtouchscreen 11652 0
uvcvideo 58116 0
compat_ioctl32 2304 1 uvcvideo
videodev 29440 1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat 15492 2 uvcvideo,videodev
v4l2_common 18304 2 uvcvideo,videodev
hci_usb 16540 2
bluetooth 61156 7 rfcomm,l2cap,hci_usb
ndiswrapper 192920 0
wmi_acer 9644 0
video 19856 8
output 4736 1 video
battery 14212 0
button 9232 0
ac 6916 0
nvidia 7825536 36
i2c_nforce2 7680 0
agpgart 34760 1 nvidia
shpchp 34452 0
pci_hotplug 30880 1 shpchp
i2c_core 24832 2 nvidia,i2c_nforce2
ext3 136712 1
jbd 48404 1 ext3
mbcache 9600 1 ext3
loop 18948 2
usbhid 31872 0
hid 38784 1 usbhid
sd_mod 30720 2
sg 36880 0
sr_mod 17956 0
cdrom 37408 1 sr_mod
sata_nv 27528 1
pata_acpi 8320 0
pata_amd 14212 0
ata_generic 8324 0
forcedeth 51980 0
libata 159344 4 sata_nv,pata_acpi,pata_amd,ata_generic
ohci_hcd 25348 0
ehci_hcd 37900 0
scsi_mod 151436 4 sd_mod,sg,sr_mod,libata
usbcore 146028 8 usbtouchscreen,uvcvideo,hci_usb,ndiswrapper,usbhid,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
thermal 16796 0
processor 36872 2 powernow_k8,thermal
fan 5636 0
fbcon 42912 0
tileblit 3456 1 fbcon
font 9472 1 fbcon
bitblit 6784 1 fbcon
softcursor 3072 1 bitblit
fuse 50708 5

Hi Andy,

Please try the following solution:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=880218&highlight=BCM4328

If the procedure does not work, please send us output of following 3 commands:

uname -a
dpkg -l | grep linux-restricted

Regards,

Mark

Hi Andy,

Please try the following solution:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=880218&highlight=BCM4328

If the procedure does not work, please send us output of following two commands:

uname -a
dpkg -l | grep linux-restricted

Regards,

Mark