First I would like to tell that I am very new in installing operating system and this is first time I am installing linux. When I insert my ubuntu installation (7.10) cd in cd drive and boot through cd, I am getting this error ‘bcm43xx_microcode5.fx’ not available’. I tried to find to answer of these questions in your forms but I guess they are too technical and I am not able to understand those at all. I am very sorry if it sounds silly. As I told you I am new user so it will be very useful if you explain me in very details. I am using dell 6400 laptop. It has vista basic premium install on it. It has dell wlan card. ( I am giving wlan card info because I found in many forms they asked wlan info). I don’t know much about how to find out more info on my wlan card but this is info I found in dell sheet(Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card (54Mbps), for Inspiron 6400/E1505). If you need more info plz tell me the way to find out too.

I also found that in ubuntu forum many ppl said to download bcm43xx-fwcutter and extract it. I have the download .rar file but the way to extract is described in linux ( I guess) and I am getting stuck before installing it. So Can you plz also tell me how to extract that because my ubuntu doesn’t get install at all. First its show some message like install ubuntu etc. whn I select install ubuntu after that some thing runs and it shows me message ‘bcm43xx_microcode5.fx not available or load failed’. Can some one pl plz help me on this ?

Thanks

If this wifi card is your only means of internet access then this could be difficult.
Ubuntu is saying it will not install until the wifi cards firmeware has been updated but the only way to do that is to install ubuntu and connect to the internet to install unrar and then the firmware.
Have you got a LAN/Ethernet port you can connect physically with, just for the initial installation ?
If so then remove the wifi(or disable it if it has a hardware switch) connect the ethernet cable, run through the ubuntu install.
Then install unrar, either from the package manager or by typing into a terminal window.
Then you can unrar and prepare the firware upgrade, then reinstall/re-enable the wifi, then upgrade the firware ("flash it") then reboot with the ethernet cable disconnected then it should all work perfectly.

Please reply and let us know how you get on.

I guess i m not getting through command prompt then i went into bias setting and disabled my wireless setting and bluetooth setting. This time it didn't showed me bcm43xx error. it showed me that Gnome is starting then one screen came and vanished immediatly and i went back to black screen. I noted down few lines which i m describing below.
================================
Cat: /varlib/acpi-support/system-version: no such file or directory... [OK]
cat: /var/lib/acpi-support/bios-version : no such file or directory... [ok]
*starting VESA state... [ok]
*Loading ACPI modules... [ok]
*Starting ACPI services... [ok]
*starting system logdaemon... [ok]
*doing wacom setup... [ok]
*starting kernal log daemon... [ok]
*starting system messsare bus dubs... [ok]
*staring newwork connection manger networkmanger... [ok]
*staring event dispacher networkmangerdispacher... [ok]
----
----
*starting GNOME display manger... [ok]
*starting pcriodic comman d schedulr cond... [ok]
*check battery state... [ok]
*running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local) [ok]

===============================
i waited around 20 minutes after this but notthing happend.
i also gave sudo apt-get install bcm43xx_fwcutter here but nothing happend. do i suppose to give this command here. I guess this is not command prompt right?

can you plz tell me what's wrong ?

laptops often have intergrade grphics cards built in that cause live CDs problems.
with Ubuntu the menu that comes up straight away when booting the CD should have a "laptop" setting, use the arrow keys to select and press enter.
I would also suggest the "check Disk" and "check memory" options to rule out those possibilities.
One last thing is to press F1 as instructed and find the various "cheat codes" for manually forcing a low resolution.
Once everything is installed you can bump it back up to a higher screen resolution.

i installed from alternate cd and after installing ubuntu i followed your earlier suggestion. It worked perfectly fine. Thanks for your suggestion

this is the link to download alternate cd http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download. you have to check the box to download cd. I faced lot of problem while installing ubuntu so thats why i went for alternate cd. After installing throuh alternate cd you have to configure x server and install bcm43xx-fwcutter too (for ati x1400). then reboot your computer and xserver won't give you any other problem anymore.

What's so different about the "alternative" CD. Do is come with more options during install? Is there anything I need to be aware of prior to installing (like ID#'s for drivers, video/sound cards, etc.)? Thanks again for the assistance. And oh, by the way, I never even noticed the option for the alternate CD when I aquired my first two Ubuntu CD's, good thing there wasn't a snake sitting there!

~~Archery~~

alternate cd provides text based install so if you have graphics problem then you can select manually. Once ubuntu is installed then you can download and install required driver. But if you have ubuntu already installed then you can update ubuntu to latest version through terminal. No need to install from cd / dvd.

The microcode cannot be distributed as its proprietary code and the chip maker has not or will not give permission for the code to be linuxified.

As mentioned before you will have to use the fwcutter on the windows code and do it yourself.

It would be worth checking out the bcm43xx devices page:

http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/?go=devices

for compatibility.

I have a 4318 card on my laptop and use ndiswrapper instead as the 43xx is not stable. Again this may meen getting your hands dirty in the shell, but if you are not comfortable with that, there is a GUI wrapper called ndisgtk that will do it for you. Again you need the windows drivers available.

The old 4306 card works fine with the microcode on my desktops.

WOW! I appreciate everybody's comments. This is some great help. I'll get the alternate CD and give this a try. I'm not too confident in my command-line-capabilities, but I've never been afraid to tear something up! Again, thanks for the assistance. I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.

~~Archery~~