Maybe all newbs struggle but please help...

OK, I've only worked with computers for 30 years starting with assembler code and debugging by entering hex using switches on the front panel but I'm just beginning to understand why (dare I say it here) Windows (there said it) has been so successful - it just works !

I'm on my 3rd distro (Mandriva 2007 Free) having tried Fedora 6 (wouldn't even boot, trashed the boot sector, needed Windows Fixboot and FixMBR to get going again) and Ubuntu 6.10 (seems to have a wireless capability but not with WEP).

So Mandriva wireless setup is quite polite and tells me it doesn't have a driver for my BT1040 wireless card and offers me to use my Windows partition but then doesn't find the driver, however it gives me a web addressto go to ! ASIDE - the monitor setup utility isn't polite and just says 'program terminated abnormally' but that's another issue.

BACK to the wireless driver - the web address Home - Broadcom 43xx doesn't provide a driver, nor a link Windows can deal with (have to use Windows 'cos Linux needs the driver to connect to the internet as I don't have a 20m ethernet cable).

So then I try searching for help and it rapidly gets very technical, too technical for me (I only write test programs for silicon chips).

PLEASE can anyone provide a location for an appropriate Linux driver and simple installation instructions for it ? Otherwise I'm afraid I'll have to abandon Linux 'cos I want to be able to connect to the world without invoking magical incantations to do with kernels or worse.

I don't want to sound too sour but I've just been back into Linux and the desktop was offset in a different direction (see ASIDE in my post).

I've also read the sticky post to this forum which seems to answer my question and if I had the time and patience I'd probably do it (tar is a staple of my professional life but I usually struggle with make). However I just can't get the enthusiasm to overcome all the hassles (remember this is the 3rd distro I've tried in the last couple of weeks without success and it's not like I have leading edge hardware - mostly 2003 vintage).

So I'm sorry if anyone has spent time on answering my post but unless you have a magic bullet I'm probably leaving the Linux world and going back to funding Bill Gates' pension.:confused:

Sorry to hear you're having such a hard time with Linux. Unfortunately some companies don't release drivers for Linux, and this is especially true for wireless cards -- which explains your problems. In these cases getting things working with Linux takes time and patience (and the ability to admit that being a Windows expert says *nothing* about your expertise with Linux). In my opinion, the time and patience are well spent, however you may disagree, in which case you will probably be happier sticking with Windows, or buying an Apple.

Welcome to the forum!

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...tml#post470915

Oxygen/Graham,
your link looked promising but I got to the make for ndsiwrapper and sure enough I had problems with 'can't find kernel build files' as suggested might happen.

At this point I give up, I'm not a Windows expert and I don't want to be a Linux expert, I just want to use it and my preference would not be for Mandriva but for Fedora 6 and that won't even boot on my machine !

Thanks for trying,
Ross

PS- definition of an expert - an 'ex' is a has been and a 'spurt' is a drip under pressure.

You don't have to fail. Try Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

Just do it, follow that guide and do that, if it doesn't work, fair do but just for me, just try it, I BET it works! I bet my HOUSEdvd-box-set of series 1 it works.

I have (well, I had, but that's another story...) the broadcom chipset working perfectly in native form for Linux on my laptop. It worked flawlessly.

I'm using Fedora core 6 here, but the process should be very simlar. The packages I used were the broadcom driver (bcm43xx driver that came with the distro - this is a standard part of the kernel since 2.6.18 ) and the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool, which comes in a package of the same name.

The process is to run the cutter over the windows drivers to extract the firmware and put it into the location specified in the cutter docs (it can vary, but is probably /lib/firmware) and put an entry into /etc/modprobe.conf along the lines of 'alias eth1 bcm43xx'.

This should make eth1 (or whatever name you've choosen for your lan device) to appear on the system after root does 'modprobe -r', then you configure it normally. You can use NetworkManager to connect to secure wireless if you want, but I used wpa_supplicant directly because NetworkManager would find a stronger lan signal from my neighbour if he has his network turned on.

Yet another blind alley I'm afraid.

I installed Kubuntu 7.04 and it seemed to detect my network card but I couldn't get it to connect when I configured it (using the Network Manager tool) with my SSID and WEP key. I've no idea how to get an error message out of it so no idea what could be wrong.

As an added pain the Kubuntu installation blew away the Windows partition without really telling me what was going on (I chose the 'Guided' option for partitioning but it seemed pretty unguided to me).

So if someone can give me some clues I'll try to get the Kubuntu talking wirelessly then start the (double) installation again,
Ross

By guided, it means it'll do it automaticly, I almost never do that, create partitions manually.

When I said try *buntu I mean get it and THEN follow http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...tml#post470915

If you run into any errors with that, post them here and I'll try to help. Also you will have to follow the bit on the bottom to disable bcm43xx because it's crap.

If you are using Ubuntu, I just configured it with a broadcom card. Unfortunately one or two of the included firmwares (namely for the 4311 card) isn't quite right.

What you need to do is update the system and then update the firmware. Plug in your Windows system directly if you can to the internet - for the sake of 5 minutes this will really simplify things for you. then in the terminal run

Code:

---

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo mkdir /usr/firmware/old;mv /lib/firmware/bcm43* /lib/firmware/old/
sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter

---

When it is installing it wil ask if you want the latest firmware downloaded and copied. Just say yes. Give your wireless card about 3-4 minutes to do its thing, I found the first time it's a bit slow. Should be working :!: :?:

That's a lot of sudo'ing but it's too late at night to get into the whole enabling root thing :lol: