Switching Distros - Dell Inspiron 1545

[monkat]

Hello! Let me start off by saying that I am a strongly intermediate linux user - I've been through multiple distributions, know how to do basic programming, and am not afraid of the command line.

Now, for various reasons, the straw breaking the camel's back being the absolute hideousness of much of Karmic Koala, I have decided to once again move away from Ubuntu. I tried to do this once before, moving to Fedora 11, but it does not come with the required Broadcom wireless driver installed, and I have no access to a wired connection so I cannot use an rpm or yum it. I also downloaded it from the official site (sorry I'm not allowed to post URLs...), but the installation/compiling did not work for me (I do not remember the exact error as it was months ago).

So, my question is, is there any solution to my problem that I am overlooking, or are there any distributions that come with the driver preinstalled?

[reed9]

Since the wl driver is non-free, I don't think many distros ship with it by default.

Why don't you download the rpm to a USB stick, transfer them to your Fedora box, and install 'em?
RPM installation of Broadcom 802.11 STA wireless driver in Fedora 8/9/10 | cenolan.com

I do a similar thing on Arch fairly frequently. Everytime there's a kernel update, I have to build the module against the new kernel. I try and keep an updated tar ball of the driver and the Arch build script for it on the computer, so when an kernel update comes through, I can build the module without an internet connection available.

[monkat]

I tried that, but it is mandatory to have access to the internet to use an RPM, either that or there are some dependencies that do not ship with the system.

[reed9]

You would need all the dependencies. I don't use Fedora, but I think it's just kmod-wl-<your kernel version> and kmod-wl-5.10.79.10.

You can find them here for F11.

[gruven]

You could always install your distro of choice, and then boot with the Ubuntu Livecd because wireless works on it, mount your install, copy over resolv.conf, and then chroot into your install and install whatever you need to get wireless working. Your internet will work because Ubuntu is connected. I do it all the time installing Gentoo.

Also, have you tried the Fedora LiveCD? It comes with wireless drivers that the DVD's don't have pre-installed. Don't know if it has yours or not, but it is worth a shot.

[monkat]

Hello! Sorry to be a bother so late in the game in this thread, but I tried doing as recommended to either simply transfer the rpms over from a usb drive, or to mount Fedora from an ubuntu partition, the live disc in this case.

Upon trying to run an rpm, I get some error (sorry, I didn't have the time, energy, nor resources to transcribe the entire thing on paper), regarding a yum xml file and the repo: fedora. It is not extremely long, but more than a few lines. At the end of it was something similar to "Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: fedora. Please verify its path and try again" (caught from a quick google search using keywords).

I also attempted to mount the Fedora partition, but following a simple guide that I found online, all it did was mount the /boot folder, and either way, doesn't solve the problem as far as I understand it.

Sorry for being such a burden, but are there any other suggestions / tips?

[MikeTbob]

I haven't used Fedora in over a year so I may be a bit outdated here...you want to use a command like yum this way

yum localinstall --disablerepo=* packagename

I'd try using RPM command like this.

rpm -Ihv packagename

You need to be in the directory that contains the .RPM files for this to work.

[gruven]

Hello! Sorry to be a bother so late in the game in this thread, but I tried doing as recommended to either simply transfer the rpms over from a usb drive, or to mount Fedora from an ubuntu partition, the live disc in this case.

Upon trying to run an rpm, I get some error (sorry, I didn't have the time, energy, nor resources to transcribe the entire thing on paper), regarding a yum xml file and the repo: fedora. It is not extremely long, but more than a few lines. At the end of it was something similar to "Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: fedora. Please verify its path and try again" (caught from a quick google search using keywords).

I also attempted to mount the Fedora partition, but following a simple guide that I found online, all it did was mount the /boot folder, and either way, doesn't solve the problem as far as I understand it.

Sorry for being such a burden, but are there any other suggestions / tips?

You first have to copy your /etc/resolv.conf over to your fedora partition from the livecd or other install you have, whatever you are using.

cp /etc/resolv.conf /wherever/you/mounted/fedora/etc/

Now, you will want to chroot into that environment now that you have your resolv.conf copied

chroot /mnt/wherever/your/fedora/is/mounted /bin/bash

You should now be able to use the internet while chrooted into your fedora partition.

Note: This only works if you have internet in the other environment.

I could help you mount your fedora partition if I knew more about your layout. I could give you exact commands then.

[gruven]

I haven't used Fedora in over a year so I may be a bit outdated here...you want to use a command like yum this way

yum localinstall --disablerepo=* packagename

I'd try using RPM command like this.

rpm -Ihv packagename

You need to be in the directory that contains the .RPM files for this to work.

It would be

yum localinstall --disablerepo=* --nogpgcheck packagename

But, if you disable the repos, it won't be able to find the dependencies so it is really kind of defeating the purpose of doing a local install of yum unless you have all of the dependencies installed already.