Hey everybody,

I am having an issue with my wireless connection dropping about every 2 minutes (web pages timing out), then working for a couple of minutes then dropping again. The connection icon in the task bar says I'm still connected at about 70%.I have a dual boot system and the wireless works fine in opensuse but not in Ubuntu 10.10

I have an Asus G50vt-X5 laptop but I am not sure about the wireless chipset.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, This connection thing is really starting to piss me off!

Sprawl

Since I am very pragmatic I would suggest that if it works in OpenSuSE then use OpenSuSE and forget about Ubuntu.

On the other hand if I wanted to figure it out I would start by booting OpenSuSE and seeing what module is loaded as the driver for the wireless NIC. Then I would boot Ubuntu and see what module is loaded for the wireless NIC. There may be a difference in the module name or there may be a difference in the module version.

I would love to...

How do I do that?

There is way more stuff broken in opensuse and I really like Ubuntu

1) Boot OpenSuSE
2) Log on as root
3) Open a terminal window
4) Issue this command and copy the results (into a file)
The do the same for Ubuntu. You will probably not be able to log on as root but you can log on to your normal Ubuntu user account. I just tested this. You don't need to be root to get a listing using lsmod in Ubuntu. I don't know about OpenSuSE.
Then you find your wireless module in each list. It probably has a name similar to the manufacturer of the wireless NIC. Compare the two lists.

I don't know how much detail you need. The OpenSuSE listing is probably going to end up in the root account's home directory for OpenSuSE while the Ubuntu listing is going to end up in the home directory of your normal Ubuntu user unless you plan ahead and put them in the same place from the start.

If your wireless chipset is broadcom, I suggest you to try compiling and installing the one from the official web page. Find out exactly which model is and try it. The link is the one that follows:

http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

I had more or less the same problem as you in ubuntu and I could happily solve it by doing this.

Hope it helps!

Sorry for the delay, I was getting a headache and took a couple days away from the problem.

I guess I should have mentioned that the openSuSE is the 64 bit version and the Ubuntu is the 32 bit. I don't know if that matters or not. Its just that when I went to download the 64 bit version of Ubuntu, part of the filename was AMD64 and since I don't have an AMD I was leery to install that one so I just went with the 32 bit.

I did what stress_junkie suggested but I can't make heads or tails of the files. They seem to be way different and I could not find anything that looked like intel-something.

The wireless card is an Intel WiFi Link 5100 if that helps.

I might just dump everything and install Ubuntu on the whole drive from scratch. Any advice on if the AMD64 bit version is the correct one? or should I just use the 32 bit?

Thanks again for all the help.

Sprawl

OK, so I downloaded the 64bit and ran ubuntu directly off the cd. I wanted to make sure that if I just reloaded the whole drive with ubuntu that I could still get online to help with the wireless issue. Running from the cd had the same problem. So I guess I need to get help with solving the issue before I reload.

Any help appreciated.

Sprawl

Intel's 64 bit chips work with that version. I really don't think there is a difference between those ISO's precompiled to work with IA64 or AMD64 architectures.

If you run Ubuntu from the cd and some device needs a propietary driver, you won't be able to use it there. I recommend you to install the lastest version of Ubuntu and install the "Restricted drivers" when you are asked.

Please comment your progress.

Thanks for responding. Is there any way to load those drivers now before I reload to make sure that will solve the problem?

I really don't know if you can install software running on a live cd. Check in System > Administration > Restricted Drivers. See if something appears there. In the worst case scenario the need to have a wired connection to download those drivers to get your wireless working.

Actually, the IA64 is meant for Itanium processors and is not compatible with amd64. However most intel processors use the same x64 architecture as amd64 and are compatible. Itanium are typical only seen in a rack mounted server. All modern intel processor such as Dual Core and Quad Cores are compatible with the amd64 distros