Hi there. Pretty new to linux installation and setup in general. I have installed Crunchbang linux onto my old dell inspiron e1505. And it seems that my wirelss networks is disabled. Or so it says as it is greyed out.
I also tried the wireless capabilities with lubuntu. Same deal. I used the iwconfig command and saw that it said
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSIDff/any Mode:managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=off...
pan0 no wirless extensions.


I am really new, like I said. But, configuring the security keys and inserting the necessary information into the network wireless connections GUI did not make "enable wireless" un-greyed.
Suggestions for a new linux user with an old laptop?

You will need to load the driver for your network card. Once that is there, you will need to configure it. Some cards need firmware as well. So, for starters, open a konsole, as root, run the command 'lspci' if its on the PCI bus, or 'lsusb' if its a usb device.

Cut and paste the info for the card here. We'll see if we can find a driver. If this is older hardware, you probably have it, or can install it. Once the drive is on your system, your use the command 'modprobe nameofmodule' to load it.

Post the above, we'll go from there.

Okay, i see the network driver.
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

Here is the location to download the driver for your Broadcom adapter.

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

Broadcom is usually bad news. If you want, have a look at this link

-->http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_l...drivers_arrive

Let me know how it goes.

Make sure you get the correct driver, 32 bit or 64 bit.

Is there a preferred way of extracting and installing the tar.gz file?

I cannot just run $tar zxf file.tar.gz?

Welcome to the forums Nightingale, here are the official Debian instructions for your wifi card:

http://wiki.debian.org/wl

(you can skip step 1 because CrunchBang uses nonfree repos by default)