Hi Everybody,

I am very newbie to linux (ubuntu 8).
Can you help me in how to enable the wireless networking under ubuntu/linux?
I have a button on the laptop which enables/disables the wireless communication which wouldn't work under linux. But works perfectly under windows. The laptop has an Intel 4965agn wireless chipset. I think the ubuntu recognise it, but the wireless led doesn't signs any activity.

Any help would be appreciated!

This site might have information about that chipset if it really is 4965agn.

You should try to verify the chipset with lspci:
Search for lines that talk about wireless devices - the device information should be there. Your kernel version you can see with
if you happen to need it.

If the light doesn't come up, it almost surely means that there is no driver (kernel module) for your wireless card loaded. Make sure what chipset the card really uses, then search for what Linux driver (kernel module) it should be using, and see if you have that module loaded:
if not, try to load it:
If it says there is no such module, it's not in your kernel. Either find out how to install it, or if you can't find a native Linux driver, resort to ndiswrapper (don't, if you can find a native driver): it's a piece of software that you can use to wrap Windows drivers for wireless devices so that the hardware works under Linux. A little more complex than a native driver, but if it works, it's good. Namely you need to install ndiswrapper (use Ubuntu package manager Synaptic) and ndiswrapper-utils, then download correct Windows drivers for your card (an .inf and a .sys file) and run
to install them. After this make sure ndiswrapper module is loaded and you should be good to go.

After months of trying to get my Broadcom wireless adaptor in my laptop to work reliably, I decided to bite the bullet and give http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/index.php a try. I know it's commercial software, if my time was worth $0.10 an hour I'd have been money ahead. It's $20. There's a 30 day free trial so you aren't out anything except a little time if it doesn't work. I'll never attempt to make ndiswrapper work if it doesn't play out of the box again.

Jim.