Hi

I have just set up Mint on my Dell Vostro 1000 laptop as dual boot with Windows Vista and I can't get a wireless connection. Mint is installed under Windows because this is a work laptop and I can't junk Vista. I'm finding Vista is nearly impossible to use - just doing simple jobs like copying files is a nightmare. As regards the wireless connection, I've tried going through the Menu and have installed bcmwl5 but get the message Hardware present: No. The laptop does have wireless capability - it's one of the few things Vista actually does properly. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Thanks.

Hi,

What do you get from the 'cli' as root with 'ifconfig -a'?

here you go. this is it. thank ou for at least showing the hardware.
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index....oadcom_bcm43xx

Thanks to Drakeo for the link. I'll work my way through the information and try a manual install. Thanks also to onebuck. I get the following from ifconfig -a :

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1d:09:dc:34:b7
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:21

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:44:c0:28:8b
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:1
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:18

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:54 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:54 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3864 (3.8 KB) TX bytes:3864 (3.8 KB)

pan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr e2:f8:e1:95:a8:91
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

I haven't a clue what this means. Thanks for your help.