Dell D520 wifi help (11.04)

[ibookg497]

Hi everyone.

I just installed ubuntu 11.04 on my dell latitude D520 laptop with a broadcom WIFI card (it says the proprietary driver is the Broadcom STA wireless driver) and ubuntu shows that the device driver is in use. My question is how to I use it? My hardware WIFI light is off and I cannot use the key combination to turn it back on. I am actually not sure how to connect to wifi... CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!

[superduperlinuxperson]

hold on let me find the website on how i did it

[superduperlinuxperson]

got it!
If you do not have any other means of Internet access on your computer, you will have to install b43-fwcutter and patch packages from the install media. After that you will need to setup firmware manually (without the firmware automatically downloading and being set up).
Setp 1.
b43-fwcutter is located on the Ubuntu install media under ../pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/ and patch is located under ../pool/main/p/patch/ or both in the official repositories online.
Double click on the package to install or in a terminal (under the desktop menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) navigate to the folder containing the package and issue the following command:

:/b43-fwcutter/$ sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter*
Step 2.
On a computer with Internet access, download the required firmware files from http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources...a-3.130.20.0.o and http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/b...0.10.5.tar.bz2
Step 3.
Copy the downloaded files to your home folder and execute the following commands consecutively in a terminal to extract and install the firmware:

~$ tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
~$ sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
~$ sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

[ibookg497]

Thanks for the help, but I have internet acces through ethernet. How do I do it through internet? Also, could you please be a little more specific about the instructions? This is my first day using linux, so sorry if I sound like a noob...

[ibookg497]

I just found b43-fwcutter on ubuntu software center... now what?

[ibookg497]

Ok. I just looked on windows and it showed that I have a broadcom 440x 10/100 integrated controller. This is for ethernet. Then it showed that I have a dell wireless 1390 WLAN Mini PCI Card. So i do not think I even have a broadcom wifi card!

[ibookg497]

correction, it is a Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

[superduperlinuxperson]

congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!! your card is supported!

this works with or without internet access
so just run those on a terminal.... and you should be good!
thanks
btw you can connect to your wifi on the top bar where the on sympol is and the battery; the one with the concave bars is the one

[superduperlinuxperson]

actually, you know what, just run this after you copied the files to your home folder
~$ tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
~$ sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
~$ sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

[superduperlinuxperson]

also check if your hardware switch for the wifi is on(it could on the front or the side