Activate B43 driver without wired internet connection?

[aintpaint]

All,

I've installed Xubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) on an old K6-2 laptop (HP N3250 pavilion). This laptop does not have built-in networking, so the installation used a wired ethernet (Realtek 8139) PCMCIA card. No problem, everything working (a little slow). I updated the installation and installed B43-fwcutter then rebooted using Broadcom 4306 wireless PCMCIA card.

The card is recognized, but I need to activate the driver. The problem is: that to activate the driver, the system wants to download and install the driver. I can't do this, because the wireless isn't activated, thus, no connection. Chicken and egg scenario.

Is there a (hopefully simple) way to activate the driver without a functioning internet connection?

When 8.10 is installed on a newer laptop with built-in wireless (Broadcom) and wired networking, there's no problem with this.

Must I go the ndiswrapper route?
Does version 9.04 address this?
Is my situation too old/esoteric to warrant consideration?

Maybe I need to reinstall in a different manner?

'sup with dat?

[divague]

Download this packages:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/...pper-utils-1.9
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/ndiswrapper-common

then open a terminal and install them:

$cd directory_where_you_saved_the_files
$sudo dpkg -i *.deb

and follow this guide https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...eisty_No-Fluff to install the drivers. (Download the drivers for your wireless card model from that guide)

[aintpaint]

divague,

Thanks for the link. I followed the instructions to the letter and was able to activate the wireless card, but immediately ran into another problem with the range of the wireless. I have seen other threads on this new problem, and based on this and several other issues, did something radical: I installed an old XP Home/SP1 and was more-or-less satisfied with its performance on this platform.

This particular laptop: K6-2/475 MHz, 256 MB, N3250 HP Pavilion, was designated to be a mare foaling monitor using an IP camera. The need for this was imminent, and the laptop was under-performing and problematic with every Linux distribution I had tried (I lost count ...). With the older XP installation, the performance was acceptable, the wireless/drivers were working (although awkward to setup in ad-hoc mode). I knew better than to "upgrade" to SP2 or SP3, because the performance would invoke a serious degradation hit. Even the DVD playback is acceptable using an old copy of WinDVD (newer WinDVD copies suffered from performance issues).

I am very pleased with the Xubuntu 8.10 installation on another faster (HP ze4430us), 6 year-old, laptop and will keep it there. It just wasn't working good enough on the ancient 10 year-old Pavilion and its PCMCIA wireless card (Broadcom 4306 Rev03).

I had also tried the latest 9.04 Unbuntu RC, but immediately ran into ERROR 15 after the installation, and reboot. The Slackware installation was a setup nightmare. The Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox actually worked best, out-of-the-box, but had the identical wireless issues. However, it was the only distribution that correctly installed DVD playback (but was unwatchable due to its performance).

Based on this experience, I have formed the opinion that, like other operating systems, Linux has grown bigger, less efficient, and less adaptable to older platforms. I would have liked to install an older Linux kernel/distribution on the old laptop, but intuitively expected that I would have even more problems, getting everything working.

This was an excellent learning experience, having been away from the Linux scene for a number of years. I hate Windows, and windows applications, with a passion, and my next desktop WILL be a Linux platform (currently a very old 700 MHz Pentium II custom box with an old ATI RAGE TV card). There's nothing I use a computer for, at home, that requires anything Windows-related. A quad-core something-or-other, with networked TV tuner, etc..., when I have the time ...

This forum is a treasure trove of information.

Thanks,

Y'all