I'm a total newbie to Linux OS so please excuse my lack of knowledge on this subject.

After days of trying to get Intel 3945 wifi adapter and driver loaded onto my dv6700 series laptop, I found out that everything is already pre-installed on the system.

But how do I go about loading it?

The laptop wireless light stays orange, which means off (I hear this is common and to disregard - that it's working).

In Network Manager, no wireless devices are found... just eth1 and pan0?
In Network Manager, if i try to create a wireless device, the Intel 3945 driver isn't an option in the list.

Please, any help is very appreciated... I think this system rocks but haven't been able to fully enjoy it spending all my time trying to get the wireless to go.


Cheers
Tim

Output of lspci command would give more information on that.

This is what I get from lspci:


00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
09:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
09:09.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
09:09.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
09:09.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
09:09.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)

well, it appears as if the wireless is loading

and i see it's a broadcom, which i dont think has an open source driver, perhaps you need to allow restricted or proprietary drivers, like i had to on my acer laptop that has ubuntu on it?

How would I do that (allow restricted/proprietary driver)? Could you explain? I really appreciate this, you're being a great help.

This link talks about your broadcom chipset and how to install driver on F8. It could be useful for you as well.

http://www.linux-noob.com/forums/ind...showtopic=3437

I've been able to get the wireless working using the method described here:
http://www.cenolan.com/2008/10/insta...iver-fedora-9/

Note that instruction #5 is missing a set of double quotes at the end of the line and should read: su -c "cp wl.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/net/wireless/"

It seems the Broadcom Linux driver supplied on their site doesn't compile properly for this kernel.

Cheers and thanks for the help.