[SOLVED] Wireless on a Dell Inspiron 6000

[fredbird67]

I recently downloaded and installed Wubi with Xubuntu on my wife and I's Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop computer. This thing has that infamous Broadcom BCM4311 wireless card that's giving me fits. I tried the how-to article at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=112526 but I'm still not getting much of anywhere at all. Any ideas?

Thanx in advance,
Fred in St. Louis, MO USA

[Ayuthia]

The guide that you are using is missing some information for the Broadcom 4311 card.

You can try the following to see if it will work with you have done so far (in the Terminal):

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ndiswrapper wl
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo iwlist scan

If this works then you need to post the results of the following so that we can make it permanent:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist|grep -e b43 -e ssb -e ndiswrapper -e wl
cat /etc/modules|grep -e b43 -e ssb -e ndiswrapper -e wl

If it does not work, please post the results of the following:

lsb-release
uname -a
ndiswrapper -v
ndiswrapper -l
lshw -C network

We need some information about what version of Ubuntu you are using along with which version of ndiswrapper you are using and what you have loaded into ndiswrapper.

[fredbird67]

Ooh...not good!

Right after the very first command, I got:
FATAL: Module ssb is in use.

What else am I supposed to do?

[Ayuthia]

Ooh...not good!

Right after the very first command, I got:
FATAL: Module ssb is in use.

What else am I supposed to do?

Ok. Let's try the following:

sudo modprobe -r b43 b43legacy b44 ssb ndiswrapper wl
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe b44
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo iwlist scan

If all this works and you are able to connect, please post the results of:

lshw -C network
cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist|grep -e b43 -e ssb -e bcm43xx -e wl -e 
ndiswrapper
cat /etc/modules|grep -e b43 -e ssb -e bcm43xx -e wl -e ndiswrapper

and we can give you the information on how to make it permanent.

EDIT: Just for your information, the ssb module in use means that there is anoter module that is using it. Most likely you have a Broadcom wired card that is using the b44 module (which requires ssb). If that is the case, you will also need a script to make your wired and wireless work.

[fredbird67]

I just noticed -- you also asked for what Ubuntu version I'm running: I'm running Xubuntu (the Xfce version -- I originally tried Ubuntu on this thing, but it kept choking and even freezing up with GNOME, so I scrapped that and redid it as a Xubuntu installation) Intrepid Ibex, and I've got NDISWrapper 1.5.3 on it (I think, and the reason I say I think is because of an error message I got below, as you'll see)

Anyways, getting back to the issue at hand...

OK, the "sudo modprobe -r b43 b43legacy b44 ssb ndiswrapper wl" command must've executed OK, because it didn't say anything after that.

However, on the "sudo modprobe ndiswrapper" command, I got the following:
FATAL: Could not open '/lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/ubuntu/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko': No such file or directory

Thanks for all the help you've been giving so far, I appreciate it.

[Ayuthia]

For some reason the ndiswrapper.ko file is not there. I think that the module is now found in linux-image. You might need to reconfigure that package:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.27-9-generic

That should rebuild the kernel and the modules.

[fredbird67]

and then I should be able to run those other commands, right?

[Ayuthia]

and then I should be able to run those other commands, right?

Correct.

[fredbird67]

Thanks a lot -- now I have no WIRED connection, either, and I even tried rebooting three times! Thankfully this is a Wubi install, where I could scrap it and start all over again if I had to. Hopefully there's a way out of this mess...

[Ayuthia]

Thanks a lot -- now I have no WIRED connection, either, and I even tried rebooting three times! Thankfully this is a Wubi install, where I could scrap it and start all over again if I had to. Hopefully there's a way out of this mess...

Sorry about that! I haven't seen that happen before. Since it seems that you are using Intrepid (8.10), you might be able to use the wl driver. Please try the following:

sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb ndiswrapper wl
sudo modprobe wl
sudo modprobe b44
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If no error messages occur, then your wired card hopefully has come back and maybe your wireless will work also.

EDIT: For the future, the next time you plan to rebuild Ubuntu,try using the wl driver first. After you install Ubuntu, all you have to do is go to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers and activate the Broadcom STA driver. That would be all you have to do. We are going this route because you started with NDISwrapper first and it will take more steps to back everything out although the dpkg-reconfigure portion was unexpected.