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gnome-nettool package

Wireless help needed - Dell e1505 (Broadcom Card) *newbe using ver11.10

Asked by John Harbison

Hi all. I am very new to this. I have installed Ubuntu 11.10 on a Dell Inspiron E1505 machine with a working wireless card. This is a broadcom card that shows up in the Windows XP Partition as a Dell 1390 WLAN card. When I have a network cable plugged into the laptop and my router, I can surf the web without issue (hence, posting this support question). I have gone to the system settings and chosen the "Additional Drivers" application and ensured that the Broadcom STA Wirless Driver is installed and the circle is green. Even after doing so, I am unable to locate a wireless network to connect to. In my house, I have many other machines using my wireless router so I know the issue is not with the router. And when I switch to my Windows XP Partition, I can browse the web wireless. Does anybody have any help to offer a Linux NewBe? I know the very basic commands as I am new to Linux (My employer is having me learn Linux/Unix Bash which is why I am trying this at their recommendation.). I have created a Wireless Connection in the Network Connections which has the WPA2 and SSID of my wireless network, but there is never a connection created. Thank you in advance for any help. - John

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C network; cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a; sudo rfkill list; dmesg | grep -i firm

Thanks

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John Harbison (john-harbison) said : 		#2

jd@ubuntu:~/Downloads$ sudo lshw -C network; cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a; sudo rfkill list; dmesg | grep -i firm
[sudo] password for jd:
  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0b:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:efdfc000-efdfffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:15:c5:0b:53:24
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=full ip=192.168.1.113 latency=64 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:17 memory:ef9fe000-ef9fffff
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=oneiric
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.10"
Linux ubuntu 3.0.0-13-generic #22-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 2 13:25:36 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
[ 23.234011] [Firmware Bug]: Duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, please try module parameter "video.allow_duplicates=1"if the current driver doesn't work.
jd@ubuntu:~/Downloads$

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Ubfan (ubfan1) said : 		#3

You might want to check out bug 732677, which indicates there are problems in Oneiric with the Broadcom STA wireless driver. The b43 driver will work fine with the addition of the firmware, which will be installed when package b43-fwcutter is installed (and the download offer accepted). Of course, the bcmwl-kernel-source package will have to be purged/removed completely and a checkmade to ensure all the "blacklist b43" lines have been removed from all files in /etc/modprobe.d (because they suppress the working b43 driver).
See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx
which indicates that the maverick version of the bcmwl... package may work.

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