Jump to content

Wireless Help - Dell Latitude D420


V.T. Eric Layton

Recommended Posts

V.T. Eric Layton

I just installed Zorin on this little Dell machine. It's working fine and dandy except for one thing. I can't figure out how to get the wireless going. :(

 

Zorin is basically Ubuntu under the hood. Any ideas? I know it's something simple, but my head's just not workting at the moment.

 

Thanks in advance...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://askubuntu.com...ireless-working

 

I would think if you can install the additional Broadcom driver under the Ubuntu menu it should work OK. Of course you'll need a wired connection to get the software.

I'm using the broadcom 80211 driver with my Dell Mini 12. Arch has a good article on this subject.

https://wiki.archlin...oadcom_wireless

Edited by raymac46
Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

I'm tired. Getting aggravated. I'll come back to this tomorrow. Thanks, guys. Have I mentioned lately that I hate Broadcom. I'm tempted to blow this Zorin off of here and install Bodhi. Hmmm... we'll see. After a fresh look at this tomorrow. No hurry. I have a couple weeks to get this set up and ready to go. It's a birthday gift for a pal.

 

Later...

 

~Eric

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly Eric it shouldn't be any harder than hooking up by wire and then going to the Additional Drivers section to get the Broadcom kernel source and firmware and let the wizard handle the installation. I installed Xubuntu on a similar Dell and that's all it took. It's not any more complicated than installing the Nvidia driver. Bodhi would give you the same issue I think. It's really Dell that has the problem and the distros scramble to get it right.

Some of these laptops can have the Broadcom mini card hauled out and replaced by an Intel one...then you're in business right out of the box.

In Xubuntu you find it right in the menu: Settings - Additional Drivers.

Edited by raymac46
Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Bodhi automagically worked on my Dell Latitude 610. Who knows about this D420. I had a heck of a time getting wireless going on my Dell Inspiron 1521 in Slackware. That was my first experience with setting up wireless on anything. Josh and Urmas were a big help with that one. :yes: I'll try to get it going in Zorin tomorrow. I think I had just been at it too long already tonight. I was getting flustered, because you're right... it shouldn't be that difficult.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah but the 610 probably had an Intel mini wifi card. Intel Centrino is as good as Linux gets. The 1521 would be one of these Broadcom babies.

Bodhi worked like a charm on my Acer Aspire One but that was an Atheros based system - very friendly to Linux. Bodhi on a USB stick won't work at all in my Inspiron M501 laptop and that's another one of the Broadcom cards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Well, I'll get 'er going. It'll just take a fresh look, I think. Wouldn't be any fun if everything worked right away out-of-the-box. ;)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All Broadcoms are equal, but some Broadcoms are less equal than others. Or something like that.

 

From Finnish Ubuntu Forums — you might want to give this a try (assuming you have the same chip):

 

 

1. Sanity hardware check:

 

lspci -nvn | grep -i net

 

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

 

2. Remove unnecessary crud:

 

sudo apt-get purge broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source bcmwl-kernel-source

 

2.1 Let's be überparanoid:

 

sudo apt-get purge b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

 

3. Reboot:

 

sudo shutdown -r now

 

4. Install drivers:

 

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

 

5. Reboot Reboot:

 

sudo shutdown -r now

 

6. Got wireless? No?

 

sudo modprobe b43

 

6.1 Got wireless NOW? Good! Add b43 to /etc/modules:

 

sudo vim /etc/modules

 

Add b43 to the last line.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

I will try this out in a while, Urmas. Thanks. Off to go ride about 15 miles on my bike now. :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Didn't get a drop on me. And besides, I may not like riding in the rain on a motorcycle, but on a bicycle it's nice sometimes... cools you off. :)

 

OK, now... it's time to test Urmas' method for wireless. Stay tuned...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Well, I did this much...

 

1. Sanity hardware check:

 

lspci -nvn | grep -i net

 

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

 

2. Remove unnecessary crud:

 

 

sudo apt-get purge broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source bcmwl-kernel-source

 

2.1 Let's be überparanoid:

 

sudo apt-get purge b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

 

3. Reboot:

 

sudo shutdown -r now

 

... and then lost ALL connectivity. Can't get it back either. No wired. No wireless. No joy whatsoever here. :(

 

Oh, well...

 

Time to try another distro on this baby. Zorin is displaying other bugs that I don't like anyway.

 

Off I go...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Nuked Zorin. Intalled Bodhi... Nirvana achieved. Wireless worked on first boot. Ahhhhhmmmm! Ahhhhhmmmm! Jeff, if you're still lurking around here, Bodhi is FABULOUS, man! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad you got it to work Eric. I'll have to try Bodhi again on my laptop with Broadcom chipset. I haven't tried the latest version.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

I installed their stable release version 1.4.0, Ray. :yes:

 

Zorin is fine for a desktop machine, but I think it may have been too much for this little netbook. Bodhi is just a feature-rich, but much lighter. It's running very well on this little machine. I had it running and all set up within an hour or so. My friend will enjoy playing his favorite online backgammon game while sitting in his recliner with this little Dell in his lap.

 

Cheers! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

securitybreach

Excellent!! Glad you got something working!!

 

One day I am going to have to devote a spare partition to Bodhi. I have used it a bit on one of my netbooks but I ended up just installing Archlinux on it. I have heard many great things about Bodhi from users here so maybe I should give it a try sometime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know I have said this many times on BATL and I am going to say it again. I have to give mad props to Jeff Hoogland and his team. Bodhi with the Enlightenment desktop is really amazing for many reasons. The one that always blows me away is how fast it runs on older hardware. I had it running on that old Toshiba with a maxed out 512 ram and it ran like a champ. I ended up slicking the HDD on that HP I got and it is running straight Bodhi. Everything worked including wireless OOTB. I thought about using it as a work computer but decided against it. Got something else tracking for that. More than likely I will end up donating the HP with Bodhi to someone and "Enlighten" them to Linux. :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

Bodhi rocks on older hardware primarily because it is a very light installation. That being said, though... features are not lacking at all in this distribution. It is robust and extremely usable. I only have an installation of it on my old Dell Latitude 610, but I have some more tester partitions available on my shop system. I may add it to one of them. Plus, I now have a 100% usable "live" version on a thumb drive. That's how I had to install it on this Dell D420 Netbook, by the way, because it has no CD/DVD player.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I try to use a LiveUSB for everything these days. USB is nearly as fast as an internal installation.

 

My Lenovo ThinkPad also has no optical drive, but usb Live environments fly on this machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

If you use a USB Linux that runs 100% from RAM, like SLAX, you're using an OS that is much faster than an internal installation. I don't even think solid state drives have the access times of RAM yet, do they? They're probably close, though. SLAX in RAM is the speed of light... almost. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eric, how did you do the install on USB, I tried this once with unetbootin and even added a few gigs of persistance but when I saved to it and changed my background, the next time I booted into the USB thumbdrive none of my settings took. It was just like running off of the live CD? I have only tried this once with Mint 12.

 

I have a 16 GB thumb that I got just for this but except for the one attempt, I have not thought about trying again. But would love to be able to have a full operating Linux OS on thumb drive that I can boot to at work that would also save my settings. :thumbsup:

Edited by ichase
Link to comment
Share on other sites

V.T. Eric Layton

I used unetbootin, also. I just followed the unetbootin wizard for installing the .iso on the thumb drive. That's all. Nothing magical. Plugged the thumb drive into the little Dell and booted up. It runs just like a live CD, but faster. I chose the install option and sat back while the Bodhi installer did its thing. Easy-peasy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting persistence can be a tricky thing on USB. Certain distros like Ubuntu allow you to do it OK, others don't. I've found that hybrid images like Mageia and Mandriva don't work with persistence very well and I think Linux Mint might be one of those. Xubuntu is a good one to make persistent.

Also certain hardware doesn't like persistent USB sticks and will give you a hangup. My secondary desktop with the AMD 690G chipset is particularly bad at this, but it may be simply a BIOS issue.

Edited by raymac46
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...