Need help with wireless... Pronto!

So XP just took a turn for the worse. I decided that I was fed up with Windows for a little bit and decided to give Ubuntu a chance for once. The issue is... I cannot connect to the internet. I cant connect via hardwire or wireless. I really need to connect via wireless (no duh with a laptop). Anyways, can you guys please help me out? I have a dell inspiron E1505 with the dell draft n-wireless card. Please help as fast as you can.. I really want to get off my phone and use my laptop for once in the past few days.

I can get on another laptop for a brief amount of time to download drivers and such and put them on a flashdrive and then transfer them.

 

Would someone please help me in doing this? I really need to get my computer working fast!

 

Alright, we need some basic hardware information. To do this, type alt + f2. Then type:

Code:

lspci > lspci.txt

Open up the lspci.txt file in your home directory and paste the output.

 

unfortunately, nothing happens when I run that command.

 

this is pretty basic..but did u check System > Administration > Hardware Drivers?
here's a couple guides that may help as well:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide#driver
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkDevices

 

Oops, we'll have to open up a terminal real quick, and run that same command, just in a terminal.


HOWEVER, Go to Hardware Drivers and check there first.

 

I would just do that... but I dont have internet on my laptop

 

Can you copy it over to a USB stick or something similar?

 

Yes I can do that, but I am really new to ubuntu and all of this makes no sense to me... Im really going to need a lot of help with this if anyone is willing to give it to me.

 

Not a short read here : HOWTO: Dell Inspiron E1505 Wireless (Broadcom 1390 WLAN) - Ubuntu Forums

 

WOAH!!!! hold up... that HOWTO is SUPER OLD!

I have the same wifi card... and there is a much easier way.

Download the drivers from here:
Missing your Wireless Drivers? | Oliver Mattos

Put the drivers on a Thumbdrive and then follow these/those instructions:

 

Ughhh! That didnt work either!

 

you rebooted right?


try the NDS wrapper method posted eariler

wifi can be tough on linux

dell might have some dell drivers.. as they offer ubuntu on their computers

 

Well I would gladly do the previous posted thing but I tried it and it requires and internet connection which I cannot get...

I'm looking for Dell drivers right now and cannot find any that have any instructions with installing them... Installing things with Linux is a real learning experience...

 

do which previous posted thing? NDIS wrapper? or the broadcom drivers?

 

Ughhhhh... That guide didnt work either.

 

Both... Maybe Im just not doing it right but I am pretty sure I am

 

Not really, some things are different though.

We need to know EXACTLY what wireless card your system uses, though.

However I have a similar PC as yours, an Inspiron 1501.

Ethernet should work out of the box...try rebooting with the ethernet plugged in.

 

I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS STUFF!!!! Ahhhh.... Its so confusing. I just need internet to work on it... I'm trying to find out what card I have and nothing will work... I just remember selecting the "Dell Draft-N Wireless" when configuring my laptop 4 years ago.

 

Alright, just calm down and relax.

Basically ,make sure your ethernet cable is connected, and boot/reboot the system. there should be a network icon in the system tray, in the upper right corner of the screen. Click it to check your connection.

 

OK I did that and it had the lights going outward (Starting at the dot on the network thing) THen it came up saying "Wired Network - disconnected - you are now offline" and when I select the network it says "Auto eth0" and when I select it again, it spends about a minute trying to connect to it then gives me the "Wired Network - disconnected - you are now offline" message

 

Hmm, are you sure your ethernet cable and router are working correctly?

Also, open up the hardware drivers utility, under System>Administration.

 

yeah the ethernet should work perfectly. It goes from my modem to the wireless router and I disconnect it from the router so I can plug in my laptop.

When trying to ope the Hardware Drivers - I get:

Downloading package indexes failed, please check your network status. MOst drivers will not be available.

I then click close and the next window says: "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system"

 

Umm....you don't disconnect it from the router....you need another ethernet cable connected from the router to your laptop...

However, if you right click the network applet, click edit connections, go to the DSL tab, and add a connection with your account details it should work, though I haven't tried it and your best bet is with another ethernet cable.

 

You.. Have... got... to... be... kidding... me.... Ughhh... Gotta go and try and find a cable...

 

Yeah...To be honest it would work the same way regardless of OS.

 

Are you sure... Before we had a wireless router, we just plugged the ethernet cable to our desktop without any router...

Anyways, I couldnt find any more CAT5 cables... I guess I'll just have to wait for my Envy 14... I would just like to use my Dell Inspiron E1505 for the last remaining days I had with it...

 

Yeah, but as I said, you have to set it up. If you know the relevant account details, you can for sure use it. Just follow the details I posted before. I can't really help you with that because it depends on your specific ISP.

 

Ughh,... Eff this... Are there any other OS's I can use that install wireless cards automatically? I dont have a windows disc with me and I wont be able to get one until this coming sunday. I really need to use my laptop to do some work and I cant just be using my phone this entire time to be trying to figure out how to work some of this.

 

Uhh, well, another user did post details on how you could get it to work a few posts back, I suggest following them. It shouldn't be to hard. Just be sure to reboot after following them.

 

To be honest, I have tried everything posted. Again, I am brand new with Linux so I cannot be sure that I am doing it all correctly but I really think that I am... I dont understand the whole "Create a file thing though"

 

Alright let me try to help you out a bit.

First, just make sure that it isn't already working, click the network applet and see if it sees your wireless device and shows your network(If you've got a hidden SSID it won't show it).

If not, do this:

Download this file to a USB flash drive.

On your E1505, plug in the flash drive and copy the wireless.tar file to your home folder.

Right click it, extract it.

Open up a terminal(Assecories>Terminal).
Type this:

Code:

cd wireless
sh install.sh

It will prompt for your password, enter it(it won't show up, don't worry, that's normal) and hit enter.

Reboot.

 

I did what you posted. When I entered my password it just went to the next line waiting for another input (I'm assuming this was correct).

I rebooted, when I rebooted, click on connections and it is still just showing "Wired Network - Disconnected. VPN Connection"

 

Are you sure wireless is enabled? I don't know the hotkey on your Inspiron but on mine it's Fn + F2.

 

Actually, it is not enabled.... I pressed the hotkey but the light is not lighting up. The BlueTooth one comes on and not the Wi-Fi. When I would do some clean installs with Windows, the light would not come on until I installed the drivers. So I dont know how to do that in Ubuntu

 

Hmm, try checking the network applet now, but right click it and make sure "enable wireless" is checked.

Also, it would have been much easier if you had another ethernet cable.

 

ummm... how do you do that...?

And I have been searching for another ethernet cable for hours and no luck...

 

The same tray icon that shows connections(like ethernet), but right click it, dont left click it, and make sure "Enable Wireless" has a check beside it, if not, click it.

 

Umm... If you mean the icon that has the networking then it has "Enable Networking, Enable Notifications" both checked. "Connection Information" which is blacked out. "Edit Connections..., About". Those are all the options I have there.

 

Somehow you managed to really screw up wireless....and I'm not quite sure how, try following my previous instructions on a live cd, but instead of rebooting, just disable wireless and enable it with the hotkey.

 

Ummm... I dont see anything about a "Live CD"

 

I'm sure that if you had my laptop you would just be able to fix it in a snap... I wish it were that easy... If anyone else has any insight please feel free to share. Otherwise, I'm going to stay up for another 5 or so minutes and then hit the sack... I'll be checking a lot in those 5 minutes though...

 

....The CD which you burned to install Ubuntu.

 

Haha, thats what I thought you meant so I went ahead and tried it and still have the same problems I just dont know what it is....

 

It's going to help more than words can say to have another ethernet cable...

 

Yes sir... I'm going to go out and buy one tomorrow... Or call someone and hopefully they will allow me to use theirs... Who knows... I'm sure if I just had another ethernet cord then I could just connect to the internet with the Ubuntu laptop and then run the drivers utility and download the drivers needed for my wireless card...

Why can things not just be that easy.... Why can things not just automatically work.... Ughhh. This is just so frustrating.

 

You'll notice in general things will work better out of the box then they do on Windows, but just things like wireless drivers...some, Ubuntu just can't legally include, so you have to connect via ethernet.

 

Ahhhh! Finally it works. Thank you so much

P.S. I would give you some more Rep but it is telling me to spread it around first

 

No worries, I'm just glad that it finally works for you!

Any more questions?

 

Yes, one more:

Ubuntu, where have you been all of my life!?!?!?!?!?

I seriously love Ubuntu!

The first thing I'm going to do with my Envy 14 the day I unbox it is create a partition and dual boot Ubuntu 10.04!