LinuxQuestions.org
Review your favorite Linux distribution.
Home Forums Tutorials Articles Register
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Laptop and Netbook
User Name
Password
Linux - Laptop and Netbook Having a problem installing or configuring Linux on your laptop? Need help running Linux on your netbook? This forum is for you. This forum is for any topics relating to Linux and either traditional laptops or netbooks (such as the Asus EEE PC, Everex CloudBook or MSI Wind).

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 09-12-2008, 03:17 PM   #1
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Rep: Reputation: 0
Cool No WiFi, No Touchpad, and more! - Dell XPS M1530 Ubuntu Hardy Heron


Hello all. I've just installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron and done the updates available as of this moment.

I haven't tried very hard yet, I admit, but my web searching has not revealed any answers that work for me.

I have no Wifi, no touchpad, no fingerprint reader... I'm sure there are other things that don't work but I haven't found them yet.

Does anyone else have these problems? Has anyone found a fix yet?

Thanks in advance.

I saved my dmesg output here: http://www.eanbowman.com/download/errors.txt
Here's my lspci output: http://www.eanbowman.com/download/lspci.txt

Last edited by P0-; 09-12-2008 at 03:24 PM. Reason: Adding lspci
 
Old 09-13-2008, 08:09 AM   #2
masonm
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Following the white rabbit
Distribution: Slackware64 -current
Posts: 2,300

Rep: Reputation: 90
Pretty much the same with any other hardware issue. Your profile lists three other distros. Do these things work in them? If you're experienced in all of those distros you should know how to install drivers and configure the hardware.

Your wifi card is a Broadcom card so you'll have to install the firmware for the native driver using fwcutter or use ndiswrapper.

Touchpad is configured in xorg.conf just as is any other mouse. You may need to install the synaptics driver.

Everything is much the same. Find and install any missing drivers, and configure the hardware.
 
Old 09-15-2008, 07:58 AM   #3
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Red face Experienced but not an expert

Thanks for that, yes I've done a quick search for solutions because I don't want to do something that screws up my install in the future when upgrades happen.

My experience with getting my hands into config files in Ubuntu hasn't been great. The upgrades seem to plow over any changes, so you need to remember to make a backup and restore it all the time. >_>

I was hoping things would "just work" but if I have to hack at it to get it working I suppose I can...

EPIC FAIL

1. The BCMWL43 isn't supported by default in my distro? What?
2. Synaptics driver is installed. The strangeness now is that it runs incredibly slowly but if I plug in my USB laser mouse it runs normal speed. If I turn the settings up to max it still tracks slowly. >_>
3. I installed the fingerprint reader software. Now I just have to find time between work, school and friends to actually screw around with my comptuer to get things to work... YAY!

:C

Last edited by P0-; 09-15-2008 at 08:04 AM.
 
Old 09-15-2008, 10:14 AM   #4
dangerboy
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Distribution: Slackware 12.1, Slackware Current, Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04
Posts: 110

Rep: Reputation: 15
Synaptic Touchpad

Check this post I just made. The Touchpad would go from frantic to slow between reboots. I added a kernel option to grub, as recommended by other posts, and it solved the problem for me. Let me know your results.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=918520
 
Old 09-16-2008, 06:33 AM   #5
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by dangerboy View Post
Check this post I just made. The Touchpad would go from frantic to slow between reboots...
dangerboy, you rock.

That fixed one problem completely.

The only problem was that after doing a soft reboot instead of powering off - I had no keyboard! XD

Hard rebooting fixed that.

Last edited by P0-; 09-16-2008 at 06:38 AM. Reason: No keyboard? Reboot!
 
Old 09-16-2008, 07:35 AM   #6
dangerboy
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Distribution: Slackware 12.1, Slackware Current, Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04
Posts: 110

Rep: Reputation: 15
Glad to be of service. I'm sure someone in the Ubuntu forums is having similar issues with their Broadcom wireless. I haven't done any searches on the topic, but if I find anything I will post it here. Likewise, I would recommend that you give the Ubuntu forums a thorough "once-over" on the topic. My m1530 came with an Intel Wireless adaptor, so Ubuntu just worked on it. Also, if you can get a wired connection, I recommend getting all the supported updates. The newer kernels might support your wireless adaptor.
 
Old 09-16-2008, 08:52 AM   #7
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by dangerboy View Post
Glad to be of service. I'm sure someone in the Ubuntu forums is having similar issues with their Broadcom wireless. I haven't done any searches on the topic, but if I find anything I will post it here. Likewise, I would recommend that you give the Ubuntu forums a thorough "once-over" on the topic. My m1530 came with an Intel Wireless adaptor, so Ubuntu just worked on it. Also, if you can get a wired connection, I recommend getting all the supported updates. The newer kernels might support your wireless adaptor.
Yes, I was hoping that updates might take care of things but they didn't completely.

My WiFi adapter is probably too new as it's an a/b/g/n model Broadcom adaptor.

I have downloaded fwcutter and it says it successfully cut the bcmwl6 driver from the Vista 32 bit drivers for it.

I still don't get the adapter appearing as a new networking device under networking or in the network manager icon.

Is there something I'm missing or is that an indication it's just not working?
 
Old 09-16-2008, 09:17 AM   #8
dangerboy
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Distribution: Slackware 12.1, Slackware Current, Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04
Posts: 110

Rep: Reputation: 15
I found a sticky on the topic. Have you tried this?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...wireless+m1530
 
Old 09-16-2008, 10:15 AM   #9
andrems
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Apr 2006
Location: Porto Alegre, Brazil
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 28

Rep: Reputation: 15
For Bradcom 4328, try the drivers posted here with Ndiswrapper and this tutorial

I have this same Bradcom chipset running on an 64-bit OS, but it sometimes takes some retries to connect (it connects but fails at the dhcp stage, but I'm running Arch).

For the touchpad, I use Synaptics and worked without problems.

Last edited by andrems; 09-16-2008 at 10:17 AM.
 
Old 09-16-2008, 02:52 PM   #10
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by andrems View Post
For Bradcom 4328, try the drivers posted here with Ndiswrapper and this tutorial

I have this same Bradcom chipset running on an 64-bit OS, but it sometimes takes some retries to connect (it connects but fails at the dhcp stage, but I'm running Arch).

For the touchpad, I use Synaptics and worked without problems.
Well I used a Dell driver in a post on the Ubuntu forums and the device finally works but it can't connecte to the WPA1 Personal TKIP network here.

Do you have any tips for getting that to work? :|

I saw something on the Ubuntu forums about this I'll try later. I'll keep this thread updated.
 
Old 09-17-2008, 06:16 AM   #11
andrems
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Apr 2006
Location: Porto Alegre, Brazil
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 28

Rep: Reputation: 15
Well, since I never used Ubuntu, I don't know. Maybe look for a network manager already installed, you should be able to configure a profile from there...
 
Old 09-17-2008, 07:58 AM   #12
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by andrems View Post
Well, since I never used Ubuntu, I don't know. Maybe look for a network manager already installed, you should be able to configure a profile from there...
Thanks anyway.

No, the WiFi adaptor appears in the Network Manager and tries to connect but continuously asks me for the password, which is entered correctly.

It seems to just not want to connect. Vista does it fine.
 
Old 09-17-2008, 08:54 AM   #13
masonm
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Following the white rabbit
Distribution: Slackware64 -current
Posts: 2,300

Rep: Reputation: 90
Have you configured wpa_supplicant?
 
Old 09-17-2008, 11:54 AM   #14
Hangdog42
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Maryland
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 7,803
Blog Entries: 1

Rep: Reputation: 422Reputation: 422Reputation: 422Reputation: 422Reputation: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by P0- View Post
Thanks anyway.

No, the WiFi adaptor appears in the Network Manager and tries to connect but continuously asks me for the password, which is entered correctly.

It seems to just not want to connect. Vista does it fine.

I've seen some reports that NetworkManager in Ubuntu is broken, particularly with respect to WPA encrypted access points. You might try replacing NetworkManager with wicd and see if that can do the job. I also experienced something similar when I installed Hardy on a friends laptop. NetworkManager wouldn't connect to my WPA network, but wicd picked it right up.
 
Old 09-17-2008, 12:07 PM   #15
P0-
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2006
Location: Peterborough
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 19

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hangdog42 View Post
I've seen some reports that NetworkManager in Ubuntu is broken, particularly with respect to WPA encrypted access points. You might try replacing NetworkManager with wicd and see if that can do the job. I also experienced something similar when I installed Hardy on a friends laptop. NetworkManager wouldn't connect to my WPA network, but wicd picked it right up.
Thanks for the suggestion. In my case networkmanager isn't the issue.

After much searching I've finally solved my WiFi issues by following this short tutorial: http://hasin.wordpress.com/2008/02/2...on-ubuntu-710/

The driver it links to actually works.

I think in the process of trying other things I might have fudged my settings somehow but with a fresh install after trying that tutorial and adding the required line to my menu.lst file to make the trackpad work, I'm happy.

If I never use the fingerprint reader in Linux, I won't feel bad.

Thanks again everyone! You were all a big help.
 
  


Reply

Tags
dell, hardware, m1530, touchpad, wifi, xps



Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
good noob distro for Dell xps m1530 khaleel5000 Linux - Laptop and Netbook 2 05-28-2008 08:18 AM
Noob with dell xps m1530 khaleel5000 Linux - Laptop and Netbook 2 05-26-2008 03:56 AM
Fedora Core 9 on Dell XPS M1530 has no sound? byhisdeeds Linux - Laptop and Netbook 2 05-24-2008 01:12 PM
ubuntu hardy heron no wifi connection chrisbobbrown Linux - Software 1 05-13-2008 12:36 AM
Dell XPS M1530 - Dell ubuntu ISOs? danraider Linux - Laptop and Netbook 4 04-02-2008 04:49 PM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Laptop and Netbook

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:15 PM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration