Inspiron 6000 - can't enable wireless

[roofusthedoofus1]

This is driving me bananas, i'm pulling my hair out here.

All i want to do is enable my recognised wireless. Thats it.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 6000. I was using xubuntu 11.04 with wireless fully functional and automatically enabled and installed with absolutely no problems. Then today i reinstalled Ubuntu 11.04 completely. For some reason the installation is unable to automatically enable WiFi.

So now i've got a PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection that is disabled. In the top right hand corner on the panel there is no wireless symbol as before, instead an up arrow and a down arrow. When i click on this there is nothing referring to wireless.

I tried to use the keyboard to manually turn it on (Fn + F2) but this doesn't work (the wireless symbol/light thingy above the keyboard remains unlit.)

'iwconfig' tells me it is listed as eth1-eth0.

'sudo lshw -C network' returns network:0 as being the wired network, network:1 DISABLED and being the wireless network.

'ip link set eth1-eth0 up' returns 'RTNETLINK answers: Operation not permitted'. Pouring over many suggestions around the interwebs this came up as a suggestion to enable the wireless adapter. Didn't work.

I know fair bit about computing but i'm only a month in with Ubuntu so i'm a total beginner with all this terminal stuff.

Thanks in advance for your replies!!!

[chili555]

i'm only a month in with Ubuntu so i'm a total beginner with all this terminal stuff.

We promise we'll be gentle! Please open a terminal and run and post here:

rfkill list all

Thanks.

[roofusthedoofus1]

hey!

Thanks for such a quick reply chili555!

i get this:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Softblocked: no
hardblocked: no

[chili555]

Well, that's not what I expected to see; it looks perfect! Nothing to fix there. Let's dig deeper. Please run and post:

dmesg | grep -e eth1 -e ipw

The pipe symbol | is on the right side of my US keyboard on the same sey with \. Thanks.

[roofusthedoofus1]

'dmesg | grep -e eth1 -e ipw' returns:

dmesg: invalid option -- 'e'

hmm....

[collisionystm]

'dmesg | grep -e eth1 -e ipw' returns:

dmesg: invalid option -- 'e'

hmm....

dmesg | grep -e eth1 -e ipw

Works for me...


Just FYI.

[chili555]

Me, too. Please try again and proofread carefully. Make sure it is -e and not - e.

[roofusthedoofus1]

unfortunately still the same, returns:

dmesg: invalid option -- 'e'
Usage: [-c] [-n level] [-r] [-s bufsize]

[pdc]

I wonder if you are able to copy and paste the commands that chili recommends.........from his post into your computer ...........perhaps it would help you

[roofusthedoofus1]

Hey there again,

Turns out i had a different type of 'pipe' inserted... god knows. Your patience is appreciated. Anyway here's what returns:

[ 23.088989] libipw: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
[ 23.088998] libipw: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
[ 23.243532] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
[ 23.243541] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 23.243695] ipw2200 0000:03:03.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 23.250012] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[ 23.632559] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZD (13 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[ 23.677687] <30>udev[324]: renamed network interface eth1 to eth1-eth0


Thanks again