LinuxQuestions.org - Dell Inspiron 130 Wireless issues & questions

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Quote:

Originally Posted by crashoveride (Post 4580798)

I am kinda having the same problem...i have wireless on my dell inpserion b130 about a week ago...now my network manager just shows hidden connections. i have a bcm4401-b0 ethernet controller and no idea why i can see my wireless networks

The only similarity is that you happen to have a Dell product. Look at Dell 130;

Quote:

Introduction This is a guide to running Linux with the Dell Inspiron B130 laptop. The Inspiron B130 is a middle to low range laptop with poor Linux support due to the Dell 1370 wireless controller.
This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which modules you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required modules have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.

For your wireless to work it seems possibly that ndiswrapper will need to be used;

Quote:

excerpt from Dell 1370;
This Dell 1370 wireless card in the Dell Inspiron B130 does not have any native drivers available for Linux so you need to use ndiswrapper. For installation instructions you may wish to view our Configuring the ndiswrapper module guide. The Dell windows driver to use can be found here.
Some versions of the B130 come with a Dell Wireless 1470 (802.11a/b/g) Dual-Band WLAN miniPCI Card (pciid: 14e4:4319). There are three possibilities for configuring this card documented at the openSUSE wiki, ndiswrapper, the proprietary Broadcom STA Driver, and the native Linux b43 Drivers available in kernels 2.6.24 and beyond. Under kernel 2.6.30-rc6-git3-4-default for OpenSUSE 11, the native b43 driver works for this device, after running /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware to install the firmware, then making sure that the radio is physically enabled (fn-F2 if it is not - dmesg generated warnings for me), and running NetworkManager (or ifup wlan0).
Some versions of the Inspiron B130 include the Intel 2200BG wireless controller. For this you can use the ipw2200 module. The Intel 2200BG would make this laptop must better to use under Linux.

This all depends on the actual chipset in use on YOUR Dell Inspiron 130. If you are lucky to have the B43 then that driver & firmware is available for newer kernels. I say lucky with tongue in cheek. :)

----
Moderator Note;

Moved: Your post is more suitable in a new thread <Linux-Hardware> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.
-----