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Problem with Wireless running Ubuntu in Dell Inspiron 1521

Hello everyone. I'm new in Linux and I can't seem to make the Wireless work. I've searched in google and on this forum and have followed some advices but i'm stuck.

I'm using Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 1521. I downloaded ndiswrapper 1.9 from Synaptic and the windows driver (the one I successfully used in windows). I managed to install the bcmwl5.inf with ndiswrapper (it says: "Hardware present:yes") but it doesn't detect any wireless conections.

If I run ndiswrapper -l in the terminal it says:

Code:

bcmwl5 : driver installed

        device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: ssb)

So far so good (I hope) BUT, when I run iwconfig it says:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.



eth0      no wireless extensions.



wlan0    IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  

          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated  Tx-Power=0 dBm  

          Retry  long limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:off

Any ideas? Again, I'm really new (installed Linux like...3 hours ago and i'm fighting with this) so i'm sorry if I did EVERYTHING WRONG, please understand :)

Well, I hope you guys can help me! I'd sure appreciate it!

Yours sincerely,

Ariel

a little bump so you guys don't forget about me :(

I have previously had nice luck with Ubuntu on Dell. The current one I am typing is Dell Inspiron connected to wireless network. I am not sure why you had to use ndiswrapper. Now that your network card seems to be installed, can you see anything on network manager regarding wireless networks? If the card is properly installed and working and if it detects wireless networks, you should just be able to left click on the network manager icon and connect to the network.

Hello linuxlover, thanks for replying! I had to use ndiswrapper because it didn't show any wireless networks on the network manager, and neither does now. Any ideas?

Run lspci in a terminal; the output should identify your wireless chipset.

Being a Dell, it's likely a Broadcom chip. The firmware is in the Ubuntu restricted repos (Synaptic-->Settings-->Repositories-->Ubuntu-->Proprietary Drivers for Devices).

You will need to use a wired connection to download the firmware.