Want to walk me through installing a driver?
 

New to Linux...

Have an old MSI U100 Wind Netbook

Just installed the latest ubuntu (ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-i386)on it because well XP.

My Netbook has an unorginal wifi card:

Looking through the help file I got a some terminal cmds.
nm-tool showed only the wired connection
sudo lshw -c network showed
BCM4311 802.11a/b/g from Broadcom

So went here and downloaded the 32bit *.tar.gz driver.

Transfered over to the netbook, and extracted it. I'm now sitting with it in a folder, and frankly I'm stuck, no idea at all how to install it.

Anyone want to spend 10min and talk me through? bearing in mind that I do know windows well but am confused at present by linux.

See this post.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ux-4175434970/

Thanks Frankbell, but that post leads me to the official linux documentation

Unfortunately that is one of the resources I tried before coming here.....
I got as far as
"STA - No Internet access"
Navigate the install media and install the packages listed below
pool/main/d/dkms
pool/main/p/patch
pool/main/f/fakeroot
There is no patch of fakeroot directory on the latest ubuntu install media.


I then tried to build? the driver from the notes in the download from broadcom.
But then I ran into problems as I needed something called headers and tools
using the terminal again, it seems like I have tools but not headers,
and I need to get internet access to get them....hrm
Is there a way to get those headers vie my wifi connection on my nexus7?

This all seems overly complicated to install a driver, I imaging this is going to be the same for BT, GPU, Webcam and other hardware

You can navigate to Ubuntu's "Additional Drivers" section & it will possibly be installed for you.

Settings - software and updates - Additional Drivers

Yes, that's one of the places I had a shufty at, but no proprietary drivers are in use,
and after it searches, it states no additional drivers available.
Thanks for the suggestion though Eddy1

Hi,

I think the easiest way to do this is to first get online with the wired connection, and then you should be able to easily install whatever is needed to get the wireless working.

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/bcm43xx

Evo2.

PS. No, the other devices will probably just work out of the box.

I think that's why this is taking me so long and seeming so complicated evo2.

Thing is I have no wired connection available.
The RJ45 port on the netbook is physically broken.

I'd hoped that with the linux driver for the wireless,on the netbook it would just be a case of installing it. But I'm a windows guy, where installing a driver is pretty painless.

After many hours and many websites I'm still not sure if I should be building a driver, downloading some other tools maybe another driver, I really have no idea how to proceed.

It would have been useful for Ubuntu to have the tools to build drivers already in the release.

Anyway, sorry ranting, I'm getting frustrated by this a little

Ironically, about 5years ago I tried linux again, I do so every so often to see how it's improving. At that time I couldn't get wifi working something about nc??? wrappers, anyway I just used a wired connection instead.


I even swapped out the original wifi module and bought this broadcom one as it was well known and more favourable to Linux, I really wanted to give ubuntu a fair crack of the whip as it were...

That's the reason the RJ45 port got broken, as it's a netbook it got moved around a lot tying it to a network socket wasn't the best idea.

If there is no relatively painless way I'm going to be able to get the wifi working, just let me know, I'll look at an alternative OS for now.

Well I guess this thread has answered itself:

I've spend too long trying to get this working, It seems no on can answer the question of how to get wifi driver installed without a wired conncetion first...

Sorry Linux, I did try and use you, really I did, but I need to use my netbook, I'll see you again in another 5 years.

Ok answer to your question download the .deb driver from ubuntu on another computer copy to flash or cd then install using gdebi or dpkg.

Thanks for the reply Eddy

I really don't know what a .deb driver is or how exactly to install it with gdebi or dpkg.

I mean thanks for the answer and all, but unless you can be a little more specific (linus - Newbie forum at all :) ) I'll probably get lost again and spend hours on the net.

Do you have time to explain it a bit more?


Like where this driver is and what it's called? (search on ubuntu site reveals no .deb)
And the actual commands to put into terminal to install

Look at broadcom sta from cd https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/bcm43xx

Really Eddy1?

In my second post I specifically said that I had tried to go that route, read all through it and got stuck at this point


I'm sorry but this is unbearable, thanks for trying to help, but obviously this is not going to happen, despite me just installing 7 and putting linux back on as I though someone was about to help me out.

Thanks all, and I do apreciate you trying to help.
/thread

You'll have to download fakeroot manually

Hi,

as far as I know all the information you need is on the page I linked to. I think you should be using the b43 driver with the binary only firmware. See in particular the section b43 - No Internet access.

If you have trouble post back explaining where you got stuck (in relation to the instructions) and why.

Evo2.