[RESOLVED] Ubunto and my wireless acer laptop - do they mix?

[paralyzedcitizen]

My acer laptop died spectatularly on me about a year ago. 1 in every 100 that you boot the bloody thing it'll work fine every other time the keyboard and touchpad go crazy. My quick fix was to buy another computer and leave my laptop sitting in the corner gathering dust. My brother however told em to install ubuntu on it cos he reckoned the problem might lie in XP. Ubuntu sorted it out! which was great but now i cant get the wireless card to work. my understanding is that the drivers are on there but there's no firmware (although i dont understand that phrase fully to be honest but that's what i've been told).

sorry for the anecdote, can anyone help?

P.S I've only been a linux user for a day or so so i'm still a bit perplexed by the whole thing.

[Dr. Octagonapus]

What version of Ubuntu? Some versions have better wireless support than others. If your wireless card isn't working "automagically", you may need to use ndiswrapper.

This process takes a Windows wireless driver and makes it useable by Linux. I had to do this for my laptop with Ubuntu and it worked great, but it's not for the faint of heart...

The process can be found here.

It's not an easy thing for a new Linux user to do, but I had to do it when I was new to Linux and I got through it :P

[paralyzedcitizen]

cheers mate. im using ubuntu 8.04

i got myself to this page and am now stuck
http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/dists/hardy-cafuego/
what does it mean by "add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list"?

i dont quite get how to use terminal. tis a strange version of command prompt.

the broadcom component is what i need ( i think)

[Dr. Octagonapus]

Hey there,

In Windows, the system is usually installed on C:\, which is referred to as the system "root".

In Linux, the root is "\" (very descriptive). So when they say to add lines to /etc/apt/sources.list, they want you to edit the sources.list file in the apt subdirectory of the etc subdirectory of the root drive.

(Confusing, I know)
If you can open terminal, you're not too far away!

Open terminal up, and type in the following command:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

This opens the sources.list file into an editor in the terminal window. It's basically notepad, and sources.list is basically a text file. Anywhere in the file, add the required lines exactly as they are shown.

When you're done, press Ctrl + X to exit; it will ask to save (in a very complicated way, naturally), and I believe you simply press y to save.

That's it!

Ubuntu is getting closer to the point where this kind of work won't be necessary anymore. I hope they get there soon :P

[paralyzedcitizen]

Thanks Dr Oc. Your instructions were really clear and helpful. unfortunatly nothing seemed to happen. Im beginning to think i'll never be able to enjoy the freedom of using the internet whilst in the bath.

I added the two lines of code to the end of the file and they definatly saved. What's meant to happen? should i be able to detect and to connect to my wireless network in the applet in the top right?

[Dr. Octagonapus]

Well I didn't have time to read exactly what you were trying to accomplish, but the sources.list file only contains a list of servers where the aptitude program can look for updates. What you need to do now is either use the graphical package manager or the command line to download and install the packages from those sources.

For the graphical tool, go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, and see if you can find the particular package (hardy-cafuego) in the list. You will then be able to install it.

[wossname]

General remark:
Don't go messing with hardware/driver settings until you're comfortable with the linux environment to such an extent that you can easily create/delete files and folders etc.

You can do a lot of damage to a system simply through inexperience so be warned.

[Dr. Octagonapus]

Generally, yes, but:

I've only been a linux user for a day or so

There's not all that much to lose. Being careful is a nice value but you don't learn anything, but you don't learn anything by being careful. Adding sources to sources.list isn't going to crush anything, even if they're wrong.

[paralyzedcitizen]

Hi Dr.Oc, i followed your instructions but couldn't find "hardy-cafuego" in the synaptic package manager. I did however find something called ndiswrapper and that that was installed. Other advice i had took me down this route. I downloaded and using ndiswrapper installed some windows drivers but still nothing.

[Dr. Octagonapus]

It is possible that the card is not supported. Do you know what make and model the card is?

[paralyzedcitizen]

It's a broadcom bcm4318 blah blah blah... It's definatley supported, so says the internet and my brother (identical twin, identical laptop) has got his fixed. I blame him really.

[kregg]

How about trying:

sudo apt-get install cafuego

? Have you tried ndiswrapper?

[paralyzedcitizen]

it couldnt find the package, what ever that means

[paralyzedcitizen]

Yeah I did try ndiswrapper, but whether I performed it correctly or not I dont know. I'm prett sure I got it workign and installed the appropriate windows drivers but nothing happened. I think I mgiht give up

[kregg]

Aha, now I understand.

Cafuego is not a package, but a repository. If your face has made that I-sucked-a-lemon look on the mention of "repository", then it's just a place where packages are kept so that users can download them via their package managers (basically, it's a simple way to install things).

Now I take it that you've read Dr. Octagonapus's (awesome name btw ) post about adding the repository and getting nothing, it's because it won't do unless you try looking for new stuff, like the firmware.

Anyways, moving on, I'm guessing this is what you've been looking for. It's the bcm43xx firmware. (Maybe you might want this as well, just to be sure).

Then we can try to see if we can shift this.

[paralyzedcitizen]

Cheers for your help everyone, I reinstalled ubuntu and then performed a complete update of everything. I then enabled the driver and it downloaded all the files and installed it in one go. I think perhasps the first time I tried to solve the problem I tried to solve it before I updated it but then after failing updating didn't work for some weird reason.