HOWTO: Dell Inspiron E1505 Wireless (Broadcom 1390 WLAN)

[Ek0nomik]

Is anybody else having to type:

 sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo iwlist scanning

on every single reboot? It seems ndiswrapper isn't being loaded by default? I also have to manually scan in order for anything to show up, otherwise network manager just says connect to wireless network.

How can I have it do these actions on every reboot?

[humphry]

I can't quite connect to the wireless networks. I'm very close, but not quite there. Here's what's going on.

Almost everything works, including

sudo iwlist scanning

I can see the wireless networks I expect to.

The little wireless light on my computer is on.

Up at the top bar, I have a system monitor for eth1. That has a little red circle with a horizontal white line in front of the normal icon. When I click it, I get the following error:

Please contact your system administrator to resolve the following problem:

SIOCGIFFLAGS error: no such device

I also cannot connect to the wireless networks. I can see them just fine though. Help?

[paperdiesel]

Help?

TO ALL WHO REQUEST HELP:

1) Please indicate:

1. your laptop model
2. ubuntu version
3. your lspci output
4. the relevant rows from /var/log/syslog
5. the relevant rows from dmesg
6. any unexpected output when following the steps in the how-to

2) If your wireless card is being recognized by the system, but you simply cannot connect to your desired wireless network, please understand that your issue is beyond the scope of this how-to, due largely to the fact that such issues are very complicated and often have absolutely nothing to do with the way you got ubuntu to recognize your wireless card. That said, I will do what I can to help. My first suggestion will always be to turn off all encryption first to see if you can at least connect to an open network.

Humphry, I'll be happy to help. Please see above and post your results.

[john rose]

All goes well until I enter the make command:

administrator@john-laptop:~/My Downloads$ cd ndiswrapper-1.41
administrator@john-laptop:~/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41$ ls
AUTHORS driver loadndisdriver.8 ndiswrapper.8 README
ChangeLog INSTALL Makefile ndiswrapper.spec utils
administrator@john-laptop:~/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41$ sudo make uninstall
Password:
NOTE: Not all installed files are removed, as different distributions install ndiswrapper files at different places.
Run uninstall as many times as necessary until no "removing" messages appear below.
administrator@john-laptop:~/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41$ sudo make
make -C driver
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/administrator/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41/driver'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/build SUBDIRS=/home/administrator/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41/driver
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-15-generic'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41/driver'. Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-15-generic'
make[1]: *** [default] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/administrator/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41/driver'
make: *** [all] Error 2
administrator@john-laptop:~/My Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.41$

Any ideas please?

[paperdiesel]

make problem

Are you sure that your sudo apt-get install build-essential worked properly? And you make sure your system is fully updated with all of the latest packages first? Did the linux headers install go smoothly?

[st33med]

Well I finally got it to work, thank goodness. BUUUUTTTT... When trying to disable Keyring, I screwed up some files in the process so I.. have... to...reinstall.....

Painful

At least I know it will work!

[humphry]

Sorry. Here's the important info:

Dell Inspiron E1705 (exactly the same as a 1505 but with a larger screen - I checked and the wireless card driver is the same)

I'm running Fiesty as of last night. I got this to work on Edgy (with the same tutorial maybe? I don't remember)

mdavidson@humphry:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0832
03:01.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 01)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 0a)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (rev 01)

4. the relevant rows from /var/log/syslog -- I don't know what counts a relevant. If you tell me I can get it.

5. the relevant rows from dmesg -- Again, I don't know what is relevant
6. any unexpected output when following the steps in the how-to -- I had a little trouble with some of the steps, then I used sudo -s which cleared up a lot of issues.

When I typed

sudo ndiswrapper -l

I got the response

bcmwl5 : driver installed
        device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)

Again, my problem is with SIOCGIFFLAGS.

Thanks so much!!!

[paperdiesel]

4. the relevant rows from /var/log/syslog -- I don't know what counts a relevant. If you tell me I can get it.

5. the relevant rows from dmesg -- Again, I don't know what is relevant

Any rows that mention ndiswrapper, wireless, broadcom, wlan, etc.

[jgayda666]

To the original poster, THANK YOU!

This worked flawlessly on my Dell D620 with 1390 wireless and Feisty Fawn (7.04)


Again, I can't thank you enough!



Jason

[FXFman1209]

PaperDeisel,

Thank you so much for this how-to! I've been using ubuntu for about two months now, and the ONLY thing I haven't been able to get working was wireless. I finally found this how-to today and it worked like a charm. My only problem was the keyboard hot-key thing. Whenever I tried iwlist scanning, it would give me "eth1 No scan results". My wifi light was not on, and when I pressed the hotkey it did not turn on. Anyway, after a bit of fiddling with the hotkey (not in BIOS), it actually worked. And then the light went on.

Anyway, my question: Do you recommend any wireless programs that are good for scanning for networks and whatnot? I've just upgraded to Feisty and the "bar applet thing" that told me that I was connected to wired network (didn't tell me wireless because I hadn't set it up yet) is now gone.

Thanks!