Wireless interface missing

[davinamarie]

Hi there, I bought my fiance a dell laptop. It used to work on our wifi but now it doesn't. When I look at the Network Settings there is only "Wired connection" and "Point to point connection".

I have looked through lots of help subjects and it seems the wireless interface is missing? I really don't know how this has happened, I've tried for hours to try and get it to work but to be honest it's just like a foreign language... I have never used this kind of OS before.

Please can someone help?

[avguy]

well, if it is a adapter, i know your problem. I just solved it myself. What you have to do is get the package ndisgtk. It can be obtained through synapatic. If not, got to packages.ubuntu.org. or whatever the packages site for ubuntu is. Anyway, if you get it off the site, you need to get ndiswrapper commons and 1.9. Then use archive manager to install these stuff. It should install something called Wireless Drivers, or something like that. It can be found under systems-administration. Then get your adapter installer disk and google the files you need to install for it to recognize, find, and use your adapter.

[davinamarie]

Sounds great! Wish I understood what you were telling me lol. Any chance you could go through that step by step?

[bkratz]

Ndiswrapper should not be necessary with Dell laptop because they usually relabel Broadcom devices. If you go to the terminal ( applications>>Accessories>>Terminal)
and enter:

lspci | grep Wireless

(that is LSPCI in lowercase, W is uppercase)

What does it say?

[davinamarie]

It doesn't say anything!

This is what it says:

ashley@ashley:~$ lspci | grep Wireless
ashley@ashley:~$

It doesnt do anything....?

[bkratz]

It doesn't say anything!

This is what it says:

ashley@ashley:~$ lspci | grep Wireless
ashley@ashley:~$

It doesnt do anything....?

how about just

lspci

? You will have to read the output or copy/paste it back here for decoding.


Oh! I just noticed you used a \ instead of a pipe |

[davinamarie]

Ok, that worked... this is a long one and I will have to type it so just bare with me

[bkratz]

Ok, that worked... this is a long one and I will have to type it so just bare with me

Well do this or reread the end of my last post edited




lspci >> ~/Desktop/lspci.txt

attatch the lspci.txt file (its on your desktop) to your post

[davinamarie]

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corp. 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801G (ICH7 Fam.) PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.1 " Express Port 2
00:1c.2 " Port 3
.......

blah blah blah, loads more...

On the bottom is 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

?

[bkratz]

Is there an entry that says network controller?

[davinamarie]

No, I used... ----> | <---- this symbol and not ----> / <---- this one.... is that correct?

[davinamarie]

Network controller says: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)