I am a complete newb to the Linux world. I thought I should get that out there first off. The other day I installed Fedora 8 onto my Dell Latitude D600 laptop. I really love the look of the OS, but I am having difficulties connecting to the internet wirelessly. However, I am able to connect through and ethernet cable. I have tried searching the web for solutions, but most resolutions might as well be greek to me. I then try to follow them, but one or two steps don't jive very well.

Can anyone help me? Please keep in mind that I am completely new to linux. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide me.

Open the terminal and post the output of /sbin/lspci

[Robocomputer@localhost ~]$ /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 01)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711EC1 SmartCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:01.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711EC1 SmartCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

I hope this helps, and thanks for taking the time to look at it.

I've got wireless working fine on my Dell Latitude D600 with Fedora Core 8 with GNOME so I should be able to help - this is kinda GNOME-specific, though...

First off, go to System->Administration->Network and activate the wireless device. Next, go to System->Administration->Services and make sure the NetworkManager daemon is running. After this, on the top right by your login name should be a little icon. If you hold down your left mouse button, you should get a choice between a wired connection and also all the wireless connections your machine can see and their various strengths. After that, its just a question of choosing one and entering the security key (if you have one!). This works fine for both WEP and WPA encrypted networks.

I think thats all I had to do, but I could be wrong.

I'm sure all this can be done via the commandline somehow but I'm a newbie myself, so...

Good luck.

Thanks for further information. I have tried activating the wirless device through those steps previously. A quick text box pop ups and then disappears, which means I am unable to read the full text. However, I did notice the word fail, which is probably a good inidcation it didn't work. Neways..It just won't change from "inactive" to active. I have even tried activating and then restarting my laptop. No success.

Maybe it has something to do with GNOME,which is what you mentioned at first. I have seen the word before, but have no idea what it means. Sorry, I should have stated I am a linux idiot..LOL.

Take a look at the script posted on this forum...

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...d.php?t=171660


This script worked on my Latitude D520; it might work for you (NOTE: there is a LOT of stuff in the script...just chose the "drives" section then the "wireless" section...everything else is just "fluff")

-C

I went to the link provided and tried to follow the instructions to the best of my understanding, but I had no luck. I am pasting exactly what I see in Terminal.

[Robocomputer@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora8.sh
bash: http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora8.sh: No such file or directory
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora.sh
bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora8.sh
bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora8.sh
bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# wget
bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost Robocomputer]# su -
[root@localhost ~]# wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora8.sh
-bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost ~]# sh fedora8.sh
sh: fedora8.sh: No such file or directory
[root@localhost ~]# sh fedora8.sh
sh: fedora8.sh: No such file or directory
[root@localhost ~]# wget http://dnmouse.webs.com/fedora.sh
-bash: wget: command not found
[root@localhost ~]#

If you can tell me what I am doing wrong by the info above, please let me know. I am going crazy trying to get this darn wireless working. Either way, thanks for your help.

GNOME is the graphical user interface. As you have a choice between this and KDE as your Window Manager on install, the tools and layout of your GUI might be different, which is why I mentioned it

Hmm...might not have wget installed (or in your path). Do a rpm -qa | grep wget if that returns nothing then try whereis wget post the output of that.

If you know it's not installed...plug into the internet (wired internet) and do yum -y install wget

Post what happens

-C

Your Dell has a Broadcom wireless chipset which can be difficult to nearly impossible to get running with Linux drivers. I would suggest that you look for information on installing ndiswrapper and using the Windows driver to get wireless running.

I have a Compaq Presario with a Broadcom chipset and was not able to get it working with the Linux drivers under Ubuntu. It works fine using ndiswrapper with the windows driver and WiFi-Radar instead of Network Manager to manage connections.

Sorry I don't have Fedora specific instructions, but you should be able to find info for ndiswrapper under Fedora easily.

Good luck...

Bob

I have gotten the Broadcom wireless working with the script I mentioned above...how about him trying a "windows easy" (i.e. 3 "enters" and you're done) way first

It turns out that I did not, in fact, have wget installed, which is a huge reason things have sucked for me. So, thank you for that one.

As for the script from dangermouse, it did allow me to see my wireless network. However, it still won't connect. It doesn't give me an error message.

However, if I go to the Network and try to activate my wireless, I get the following error message:

Component: system-config-network
Version: 1.4.3
Summary: TB83608bd4 Conf.py:1167:__setitem__:NameError: global name 'join' is not defined

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/gui/maindialog.py", line 729, in on_activateButton_clicked
self.activateButtonFunc[self.active_page](button)
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/gui/maindialog.py", line 940, in on_deviceActivateButton_clicked
if self.save() != 0:
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/gui/maindialog.py", line 351, in save
self.saveHardware()
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/gui/maindialog.py", line 379, in saveHardware
hardwarelist.save()
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/NCHardwareList.py", line 765, in save
modules.write()
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/conf/Conf.py", line 1195, in write
self[key] = self.vars[key]
File "/usr/share/system-config-network/netconfpkg/conf/Conf.py", line 1167, in __setitem__
comment = join(cl[1:], '#')
NameError: global name 'join' is not defined

Local variables in innermost frame:
findexp: ^[ ]*install[ ]+ssb[ ]+
missing: 1
varname: ssb
self: <netconfpkg.NCHardwareList.MyConfModules instance at 0xa0c21ec>
cl: ['install ssb /bin/true ', ' temporarily disabled by driverloader - conflicts with bcm43xx.inf']
value: {'alias': '', 'options': {}, 'install': ['/bin/true', '#', 'temporarily', 'disabled', 'by', 'driverloader', '-', 'conflicts', 'with', 'bcm43xx.inf'], 'remove': []}
replace: install ssb /bin/true # temporarily disabled by driverloader - conflicts with bcm43xx.inf
place: 0
key: install
endofline: /bin/true # temporarily disabled by driverloader - conflicts with bcm43xx.inf

Does anyone have any idea what this all might mean? I feel that I am on the cusp of being wireless in linux. So, thank you all for taking the time to help me out.

I know that you did...but I have to ask anyway...did you reboot after the script?

Now (if you did...cuz I know you did) after the reboot you must have NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher "turned on" as root do a ntsysv

Make sure there's a * in the squares net to them. Save and reboot again and let us know what happens


-C