I detest Windows. All versions.
One day I had the chance to use a friends laptop running Ubuntu. Might as well been a narcotic - I was hooked! Ran down to the local bookstore & found a mag on Ubuntu containing a live CD, pulled out the unused laptop got busy. Sure, I had a hiccup or two, but soon I was happy.

Then I decided to fire up the wireless and get on the web sans the cable... and that is where my Ubuntu high became a bad trip.

I've been through page after page of hints, tricks, & user-defined wisdom & still the wireless isn't working! Guys, I hate to give up on a great idea. There has GOT to be an answer somewhere. (& yes, I've been posting to the networking forum.)

At his point I'd love to hear from others that have had - and overcome - this issue. Just to give me hope.

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=336

Especially see the stickies at the top of the forum.

You're not the first person to have trouble getting wireless to work, and you won't be the last. IMHO the manufacturers of wireless hardware need to step up to the plate here.

Without knowing what your laptop is it is extremely difficult to help you.

If you could supply make and model type information and also post the output of so we can see what wireless card your laptop has.

Have you been able to connect with a wire?
Is your laptop seeing the network but just not connecting to the internet and/or updating?

I'll work from the premise that it is setup and seeing the network but not connecting to a any sites with this hint.

Go to this page and follow the instructions. Btw I have never had to do this in Debian but I have had to do it in Ubuntu since 7.10.

I agree!

The laptop is a HP Pavilion dv2000. The wireless listed in lspci is:
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 02)

Might I have better luck by a re-install? This was the first install on a brand new hard drive. When I 1st tried Ubuntu it was on a small drive as an external. After a bit of trouble, the wireless began working - until I shut the laptop down for the night. Then, nothing.

Did you try the suggestion in the link I posted to?

I think his original thread on this topic is here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-issue-877283/

@Bull J, is this thread strictly for ranting? If so then it would be better to keep your wireless troubleshooting in the original thread. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Re-installation will probably not have any effect on your broadcom card. Follow the directions in the link.

If you ever get another box check the hardware first. Some manufacturers have great support for Linux. Broadcom is not one of them.

Why did I have a feeling of dread that it would be Broadcom the moment he mentioned wireless issues?

Broadcom is the bane of my existence, on every OS.

If it's a broadcom wireless card, it can be made to work. I have a Dell laptop with a broadcom wireless card and after connecting with a wired connection, I was able to get the STA driver installed. It has worked fine ever since. It's like riding a 58 Pan, you have to be gentle and work around the idiosyncrasies.

I used to have a stack of Intel 3945's that I used to buy cheap refurbished laptops, replace the garbage Broadcoms with the 3945, and resell with linux on them.

This is certainly true - my laptop's broadcom worked perfectly on Natty. The point is that it seems like 99% of the time that WiFi doesn't work properly under Win 7 or Linux, it's a broadcom. They're just flaky cards in general.

Wow. I have never had the pleasure of using a broadcom card but assumed that they actually worked with MS. Why on earth does any manufaturer put them in any kind of box? I mean I could see it if it worked well on MS but geeze.

I assume they are cheap.

My laptop with a broadcom card has very spotty wifi under Win7 with frequent long pauses (lag of some sort) and if you do a ping -n 10000 host, you'll see drops all over the place. Who knows what they're thinking.