Wireless and Ethernet interfaces disabled in Ubuntu 8.10
 

Hi,

I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 (64-bit version) on my system (Compaq Presario R4000, AMD Athlon 64) but cannot connect to the Internet.

I am running Windows XP (32-bit version) on my other hard drive partition. My Ethernet connection is based on a Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ and my WLAN connection on a Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g. I used ndiswrapper to install all of the network drivers that came in the driver installation CD for the machine. This did not remedy the problem.

I tried the "sudo lshw -C network" command in the terminal to diagnose the status of my network controllers with the following results:

*-network:0
description: Network controller
product: BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:03:02.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=64 module=ssb
*-network:1
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 6
bus info: pci@0000:03:06.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 00:0f:b0:6f:81:9e
size: 10MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 duplex=half latency=128 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 module=8139too multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s
*-network:0 DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 2
logical name: wlan0
serial: 00:90:4b:eb:05:da
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
*-network:1 DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 3
logical name: pan0
serial: ce:ac:91:ba:a3:64
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

How can I change the above device statuses from "DISABLED" to "ENABLED"? Thanks in advance for helping me out.

The commands you are interested in are ifconfig and iwconfig.
You may need to activate them in BIOS.
You may need to disable advanced power management for them in bios if windows keeps putting them to sleep.

With ubuntu, it is usually sufficient to plug an ethernet cable in to use the wired nic with 8139too driver. Have you tried?

Broadcom cards often need firmware ... that card should be supported by bcm43x driver.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31859