Connecting to Wireless Internets
 

Hi,

I'm trying to connect to a free wifi network but it doesn't come up on my linux (ubuntu) platform. However, when I reboot in Vista, it connects automatically. Under Network properties, I have tried enable roaming mode, as well as just selecting DHCP as the configuration type. Still no luck. I'm not sure what else to do. I have the correct driver I think. It is the following:

Broadcom Coporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI(rev 02)

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

I use madwifi (http://madwifi.org): it works great and I can scan and connect to anyone in the neighbourhood if i want. They also provide a lot of decent documentation.

You need your kernel configured correctly or (most likely) some kind of module loaded, in any case.

[update] as arochester points out madwifi is for Atheros stuff. Sorry...

Is your wireless interface "UP" under Linux?
Ususally your eth0 interface is your rj45 jack for a cable connection and eth1 is for the wireless connection
will show state of your interfaces. If there is no entry for eth1 bring it up by:
If you re-run ifconfig it should not show you that eth1 is up and the inet line should show you the IP addr that it is pulling from the DHCP server

Open up a terminal and run the following:

dmesg|grep wlan (to find out what your interface is named--try also eth)

ifconfig (to verify if your interface is active)

If not, then:
ifconfig wlan0 up (substitute correct name if "wlan0" is not the name of the interface)

Assuming the interface is up, try:
iwlist wlan0 scan

Madwifi is associated with Atheros cards not Broadcom. Have a look at e.g. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=684359

Broadcom on Hardy had to install a few extra lines

you try to turn off wireless then return on wireless

To open up a terminal, I just hit, CTRL ALT F1, right? I am completely new to Linux. I plan on pretty much becoming an expert though. :P

Thanks

I tried running these in a terminal. When I run this: iwlist wlan0 scan it tells me wlan0 no scan results.

When I run dmesg grep wlan it tells me the following:

usage: dmesg [-c] [-n level] [-s bufsize]

I tried it like this dmesg|grep wlan and it did absolutely nothing.

I tried the other command, and it gave me a huge list of stuff...

Try "dmesg|grep eth"
We're trying to see if your wireless is being recognized by the system.

You can also run lspci to fing the name of the card, and then do something like:
dmesg|grep Broadcom

Did you try "ifconfig wlan0 up"? This turns on wlan0.

Here's what we are looking for in the output of ifconfig:
The things in bold tell us if your connection is working.

Okay I will try that. Sorry I'm so retarded with Linux. I just need to breach the learning curve.

Okay I put in the dmesg|grep eth and it spit out a bunch of gibberish. The one line did catch me though. It says:
[23.211065] Driver 'sd' needs updating - pleaseu use bus-type methods
[23.212880] sda:<4>Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus-type methods
[33.163073] eth0: no link during initialization.

Then it says..

[255.529620] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode13.fw" not found or load failed.

I think that sounds like the problem right there probably...:)

I ran ifconfig wlan up and it told me there is no such device....

Says I should go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/dr...devicefirmware and download the correct firmware.

So I suppose the relevant question would be how I can download the firmware file b43/ucode13.fw...

I will try searching online to see what I can find..I have already googled it and been to the linuxwireless.org site but I haven't found a download link yet. It did say however that there are only certain 'distribution points' where I can obtain it. I'm wondering, would that be like from HP or something..?

Google found this:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware

Looks promising.....

for completeness, note that you cannot "up" an interface which has no driver associated. To ifconfig, the driver is the device.