Wireless problems. Sony Vaio, Ubuntu 9.something >.<

[furballbeethoven]

As far as I can tell, my problem is that the Vaio smart network program that runs while I'm in Vista isn't running while I'm in Ubuntu. This makes sense, or it would, if the wireless had been working not 6 hours ago >.< Anyone know what's wrong? Let me know if you need more info or specs.


P.S. I should probably mention that, while I'm not a complete computer retard, I don't know much about Linux (just installed Ubuntu for the first time last night). So please forgive me if I ask you to clarify any instructions you give me, I'm learning as fast as I can!

[jmadero]

the smart network program won't run in Ubuntu, it's a microsoft program and isn't even needed in Vista (I recommend removing it as all of those extra programs for wireless are usually worthless, Dell has one that is horrible). Go to sytem->administrator->hardware drivers and see if there is a wireless driver that needs installed

[furballbeethoven]

the smart network program won't run in Ubuntu, it's a microsoft program and isn't even needed in Vista (I recommend removing it as all of those extra programs for wireless are usually worthless, Dell has one that is horrible). Go to sytem->administrator->hardware drivers and see if there is a wireless driver that needs installed

Actually, this hasn't worked. I have the driver activated, and I even used the windows wireless drivers application to install the wireless driver from Vista... and it still doesn't work =/

[jmadero]

Actually, this hasn't worked. I have the driver activated, and I even used the windows wireless drivers application to install the wireless driver from Vista... and it still doesn't work =/

You should use the XP driver if you're using ndiswrapper, but you should NOT have both the native driver and ndiswrapper running together, this will cause problems. Uninstall ndiswrapper, it's worthless unless you absolutely need to use it, then remove the native driver, restart, run this command in terminal:

sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean

then reinstall the native driver, restart

[furballbeethoven]

By native driver, do you mean the "madwifi" one? That's the only driver that pops up when I open up Hardware Drivers. If so, that didn't work. >.< Why, oh why does Sony always have to be difficult....

[reed9]

Let's take a step back and find out exactly what your wireless card is and what drivers you have loading.

Open a terminal and post the output of the following commands.

lspci

and

lsmod

[kmitnick]

I even used the windows wireless drivers application to install the wireless driver from Vista

how did you do that? using ndiswrapper as jmadero said???

[jmadero]

yeah I think taking a step back is best now. And yes madwifi would be the native driver (native just means it was made for Linux either by the company or by someone who reverse engineered the windows driver).

[furballbeethoven]

lspci said:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
08:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
08:03.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
08:03.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

lsmod said:

Module Size Used by
i915 65540 2
drm 96296 3 i915
binfmt_misc 16776 1
ppdev 15620 0
bridge 56340 0
stp 10500 1 bridge
bnep 20224 2
input_polldev 11912 0
lp 17156 0
parport 42220 2 ppdev,lp
joydev 18368 0
snd_hda_intel 435636 5
snd_pcm_oss 46336 0
snd_mixer_oss 22656 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 82948 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 10756 0
snd_seq_oss 37760 0
snd_seq_midi 14336 0
snd_rawmidi 29696 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 15104 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 56880 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_mid i_event
snd_timer 29704 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14988 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi ,snd_seq
tifm_sd 17928 0
pcmcia 44748 0
snd 62628 18 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,sn d_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_de vice
tifm_7xx1 13824 0
soundcore 15200 1 snd
psmouse 61972 0
yenta_socket 32396 1
rsrc_nonstatic 19328 1 yenta_socket
intel_agp 34108 1
iTCO_wdt 19108 0
video 25360 0
serio_raw 13316 0
pcspkr 10496 0
tifm_core 15900 2 tifm_sd,tifm_7xx1
pcmcia_core 43540 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
agpgart 42696 3 drm,intel_agp
iTCO_vendor_support 11652 1 iTCO_wdt
snd_page_alloc 16904 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
output 11008 1 video
sony_laptop 40796 0
ndiswrapper 193436 0
usbhid 42336 0
ohci1394 38576 0
ieee1394 94660 1 ohci1394
sky2 54916 0
fbcon 46112 0
tileblit 10752 1 fbcon
font 16384 1 fbcon
bitblit 13824 1 fbcon
softcursor 9984 1 bitblit

how did you do that? using ndiswrapper as jmadero said???

Yeah, that's the one. I removed it already

Also, thanks for being patient everyone, (and of course for actually helping ) I promise I'm learning as fast as I can ;D

[Hal343]

I believe that the ath5k driver should work. If it doesn't you can build from scratch using this tutorial:How to get Atheros AR5007EG or AR242x wireless cards (may be other models) working in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)|Ubuntu Geek, but I would save that as a last resort.EDIT try this: sudo modprobe ath5k