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Linux Guru's needed please

post #1 of 18
11/27/06 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
OK I need some help guys and gals because I cant figure out how to make this work. This is the issue I am having, Im trying to get the wifi working on my Dell 1705 thats uses the 1390 WIFI broadcom card. Now I am sure lots will post just follow these instructions listed below

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...1390+Dell+Wlan

Here's the issue, I have no lan connection to get on th net, the wifi is my only source for internet. I am dual booting and in XP and thats how im posting. I am running the latest version of Ubuntu and trying to get online to get updates and work the rest of the bugs. Ubuntu can acces my XP partition without issues and can copy things over. Now if you all think it's better to find a LAN connection I will do so. Thanks for any help and advice.
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post #2 of 18
11/27/06 at 11:51am
If you can't get on the net with wireless, and your current version of ndiswrapper(If you have one) wont work, you need to go to another computer to get the files needed, or else find a lan connection. If you can connect via XP and can copy the files over fromt here, then that will work for a different machine. Debian based distros all use the dpkg system for their packages, but you will probably hav e to go through dependency hell as it is known. At any rate you can download the package files and use dpkg on the commandline to install them.

The LAN connection route will most likely be your easiest, where are you that you have no access to a LAN port but have access to wireless?

Seablade
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post #3 of 18
11/27/06 at 12:11pm
Thread Starter 
I travel and right now I find myself at a Hotel that they offer wireless only no lan. I did download the latest Ndiswrapper and the Dell file they where talking about. Im going to jump over Ubuntu and try to copy them over and see how it goes. I try that dpkg command and post things here.
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post #4 of 18
11/27/06 at 1:28pm
Thread Starter 
It didnt work, ndiswrapper gives error 2 when I do the make install command. It must be because I did none of the buils-essential and linux headers command before that. I will have no choice but to find a lan line. Thanks all for the help.
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post #5 of 18
11/27/06 at 4:38pm
Look around for CyberCafes, they still exist and a few are even coming back nowadays from the 80s/early 90s dotcom era.

Without seeing the actual error messages, I couldn't tell you for certain what the problem is, but yes you are probably correct, if you don't have the linux source headers available(And I don't think they are installed by default on Ubuntu) you will not be able to compile the ndiswrapper kernel module.

Depending on what you are travelling for, you should be able to borrow a lan line from wherever, or worst case network to borrow a dialup line.

Seablade

Who has spent plenty of time travelling across country in a truck for theater tours.
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post #6 of 18
11/27/06 at 11:32pm
Thread Starter 
Ok i got all the updates and got ndiswrapper installed, and the driver installed. Unfortunately it still dosent work.

When I type sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
Says Driver installed

then i type

sudo ndiswrapper -l

says wrong driver or something on those lines... Any help will be wonderful ..
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post #7 of 18
11/27/06 at 11:46pm
Need to know that error message. My first thought though, is are you sure you used the correct broadcom windows driver for your wireless card? As I recall they have several that are VERY similarly named for different cards. If you are seeing...
Code:
cannot locate lspci. Unable to see if hardware is present
Then you may not have pciutils installed(Remember that dependency hell I mentioned?) You would need to install that in the same way. You can check to see if it is installed easily though as I believe the lspci utility is part of it, so type lspci and see what happens. Glancing at the installation instructions, you should see it mentioned the card being present if you are using the correct driver, which is why I asked above. Also make sure you are running these commands with sudo if you need to. And you can always try modprobing the ndiswrapper module in anyways and see if it works. Seablade
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post #8 of 18
11/28/06 at 12:27am
Thread Starter 
Well the error I get after the ndiswrapper-l is Invalid Driver. The green light does turn on, on my laptop. I also tried a different driver from Dell .com with the same result. I have no other idea to try. I removed the older driver by doing -r before installing it. Thansk for any advice..
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post #9 of 18
11/28/06 at 12:35am
ndiswrapper can be kinda bitchy sometimes...but you just gotta work through it. lol, sry but thats the best i can give you since my wireless card (Atheros) has native linux support (madwifi)... haven't had to deal with ndiswrapper much
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post #10 of 18
11/28/06 at 1:21am
Thread Starter 
I dont know what else to try, I found 2 files used by another member in the Ubuntu forums and tried them with the same result. I am running out of options ..
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post #11 of 18
11/28/06 at 1:40am
Go ahead and modprobe ndiswrapper, type ifconfig and see if there are any new devices showing up, or if there are any messages conveyed either to your screen or dmesg.

If there are post them up and it may give a clue where to go.

Anyone remember what the device name for ndiswrapper wireless is? Its been to long for me sorry.

Seablade

PS I just realised on your PM, SSH obviously isnt an option if you can't get linux on the net, sorry
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post #12 of 18
11/28/06 at 1:41am
Start here on these instructions and try this....

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...on#Load_module

Tell me how far you get or what messages may come up.

Also what version of ndiswrapper are you using?

Seablade
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post #13 of 18
11/28/06 at 1:58am
Thread Starter 
ok getting 2nd laptop out so i can post and work under Ubuntu at the same time going to follow directions and post my findings. Thanks for the help.
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post #14 of 18
11/28/06 at 2:26am
Thread Starter 
Guys whats the commend to remove a directory in ubuntu? RM wont do it.
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post #15 of 18
11/28/06 at 3:15am
Thread Starter 
WOOHOO I finally got it!! I was using ndiswrapper 1.29 and was reading some people having issues with it, so i moved over to 1.28-rc2 and it worked!! I am typing on my laptop over the WIFI. Now to reboot and see if it works LoL.....
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post #16 of 18
11/28/06 at 9:08am
Heh good job then, I was wondering if there might be a version issue, but I was thinking in the other direction

By the way, rmdir will remove an empty directory. If you need to remove a directory along with all its contents you can use..

rm -R <directory>

But be VERY careful using that as it is an easy way to accidently delete something you didn't want to and really screw up your system. It will recursively delete whatever you tell it to, so all its subfolders etc as well.

Seablade
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post #17 of 18
11/28/06 at 12:27pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Sea Blade, I really did appreciate all the advice you gave me!
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post #18 of 18
11/28/06 at 3:27pm
No prob, getting help on linux is pretty easy in general via forums or mailing lists, just do what research you can beforehand(Like you did) and explain the problem well(Also like you did).

Seablade
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