I have a new Toshiba A505-6980 laptop running Windows 7 with built-in Realtek wireless chipset (8172). I need to have Windows running currently for my job. My goal is to install Linux and then Windows 7 as a VM under Virtual Box.

In the meantime, I installed Wubi. I tried to install the wireless, but Windows Wireless Drivers wasn't installed. I tried downloading it through the built in Software Center, and it said "Not available in the current data". So I am going to manually install ndiswrapper and go from there. I already have the realtek windows inf and sys files.

My question is why is the Windows Wireless Drivers software not installed and also unavailable. Is it a Wubi thing? This is my first attempt at Wubi. My last laptop was running Linux Mint 7 as the only OS, and it had no problems installing Windows drivers.

Thanks,

Ubuntu has the policy of not automatically enabling the multiverse and universe repositories, because these contain software that is not licensed in ways that promote software freedom. Mint takes the opposite approach.

If you want to continue to use Ubuntu (via wubi), then you can enable the multiverse and universe repositories in order to install the wireless drivers.

If you prefer Mint, then they have a rebranded wubi called mint4win (though I think it only comes on the Mint CD, there isn't a website for it that I know of).

Thanks for the reply. I ran updates and updated the kernel and Windows Device Drivers was available. I now have the drivers installed, but the wireless device still doesn't show up. It's listed in lspci, and the drivers show up under Hardware Drivers, but after reboots it still doesn't show up. Any ideas?

Thanks for telling me about Mint4Win. I might try it and the latest Mint Live CD and see if I can get the wireless up on it. Had great luck with Mint 4, 5 and 7 and laptop wireless.