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- Spr0k3t, on 10/10/2007, -5/+54An even easier method would be for broadcom to figure out that people want real drivers.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -13/+34I gave up months ago. That was the only reason why I stopped trying to ***** with Ubuntu.
- betasp, on 10/10/2007, -25/+42The article could be renamed "Read these instruction to better understand why Linux is not ready for the desktop."
- dramatix01, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17Here is a post from the Ubuntu forums that has a downloadable installer that will get your card working automatically.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=405990
I used this on my HP laptop and it worked without a hitch! - ralph123, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Don't you people get tired of this?
So in an environment where one operating system has a near monopoly of almost 90% market share, you bitch and moan because a minority operating system requires some easy steps to get some hardware working as this hardware is not supported by the manufacturer on this OS?
How stupid can you get? - JamesWilson, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13Even the windows drivers lock up on me sometimes and I have to do a cold boot to get wifi back. It is just a POS device IMHO.
- EnterDaMatrix, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8They're talking about platform architectures. Good luck getting Windows running natively on a PPC or MIPS machine.
- jbohlinger, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Yeah, I have been trying to get wireless to work for me since 4.10 - and it worked out of the box on Ubuntu 7.04.
I would encourage all 4 of you to keep trying with each release. - Alex74447, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8For wireless USB adapters, this is the bets guide out there:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=400236
Saved Linux from being erased off my hard drive quite a few times. - muniak, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8It's so simple! ndiswrapper is easy to install and easy to use!
reknaps, that's a somewhat immature attitude isn't it? You're never using it again even if it will work out of the box, because it didn't work a couple of times? - neodorian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6I was incredibly lucky I guess. I bought an old Toshiba tablet off ebay and it got right on the network as soon as I installed Ubuntu.
- bilangew, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6The problem with broadcomm 43xx cards is that they heavily rely on software (NOT drivers) to make the hardware run. For example, on my Acer Aspire 5044, I have a led button used as an on/off switch for my wireless card. In Windows, I HAVE to load the Acer software to make this button behave, so it can turn on my wireless card.
The same thing has to happen on a Linux installation - you have to install specific software to make your button behave (in my case, acerhk and acer_acpi), and THEN load your wireless driver module.
Im sure normal wireless cards usually doesnt rely on an external button to activate it.
Either way, for documentation purposes (google search, etc), Ive written an howto probably very Acer-centric, but it can be applied to other bcm43xx button-software-dependant machines too. Link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=307355 - geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Better fix: don't give Broadcom any money for anything. Maybe they'll figure out that drivers are an important part of making their hardware work. Their Windows drivers aren't the world's greatest either.
- abhinavg90, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7u have to learn everything thats new
u cant expect to learn everything the moment u see it.. u must have taken a little time to get used to windows too
and after using vista, its easy to say that linux is better
the only thing that i liked about vista was that i removed it easily :P - sirhomer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Nope the tides are turning, look at most every Linux article in the past month, full of Linux bashing. Witness, the rise of the M$ fanboy!
- chedabob, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Woosh...
- BrandonPerry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I have Dell Inspiron 1501 and the only thing that doesn't work on a fresh install is the wireless. I usually get that working in 5 minutes or so. NDISwrapper is awesome.
- r0b0, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Everything on my laptop works fine, no screwing around with it, worked out of the box.
- reed311, on 10/10/2007, -11/+16Ubuntu: "It just works"
- FooAtari, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Cmon, just because you have no problems there isnt any?
I purchased an Acer (with broadcom chips) £350 laptop for internet use and had great difficulties setting up wireless in ubuntu, so much so that I reverted back to windows, for the moment. Just take a look around the Ubuntu forums, the wireless issue is big. I'm not saying this is the fault of Linux or Ubuntu but the problem is their none the less - adammharvey, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7im really trying to stick with linux but man sometimes its just tricky. but at least i learn a whole lot of other stuff when im trying to figure out the first thing i didnt know, i guess.
- scilec, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5A couple of weeks ago, I decided to ditch Windows XP on my small Fujitsu Lifebook and install Kubuntu instead. I normally use Fedora and Centos, but I wanted to give it a try. Most things worked right away (including the built-in wireless g networking) but the laptop would not recognize my Linksys USB wirless-N card at all. However, I used ndiswrapper to load the windows driver (similar to what's described in the post) and it worked perfectly. I was also able to get the tablet PC pen, screen rotation, and brightness working with some additional tweaks and a few scripts.
Yes, I love Linux. But the reason I decided to do this is because this laptop has only 512MB of ram. Under Windows XP, the combined boot & login time was over 5 minutes. And that's after defragmenting & using CCleaner regularly. Also, the system performance had always been terribly sluggish. Half the time I'd stare at the little hard drive LED blinking on & off while I waited for something to happen. With Kubuntu, I'm up & running in just a couple of minutes (or less) after turning the laptop on. When I launch Firefox, it launches right away. I don't have to wait for God knows what as the slow 4500rpm hard drive clicks and whirs.
Linux distros like Ubuntu/Kubuntu may not yet be as easy to install and manage as Windows XP, but they will be very soon (wait for the upcoming release!). But my point is, even though a bit of hacking is still required to get Linux to behave the way you want it to, there are plenty of reasons to ditch Windows and install Linux. In my case, it was performance. Now, I can actually do stuff on my laptop again instead of being driven into epileptic seizures by the hard drive LED. - ilovenicotine, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Not ready for the desktop? It's already on mine baby.
- Icecream, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I have the same laptop and Im using the "native linux driver" for the broadcom chip
http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/2007/05/another-way-to-get-wi-fi-on-dell-1501.html
Is a very decent guide for installing it, i havent had any problems as yet. - burty89, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You don't. Everything thats done there could be done without the terminal, the terminal method is just easier to describe:
1) Download this file http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/feisty-cafuego/bcm43xx/bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb
2) Double click on the file, and then click install on the dialog that pops up
3) Enter your password when asked for it
4) Delete the file once the installer is finished
5) Restart (or reload the driver, but that means the terminal :P)
Still, the graphical method is 5 steps, and I'm sure number 5 could be omitted without major confusion - upsilonh24, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Where's the fun in that?
- thewindfish, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8Linux is for people who enjoy playing with computers. There isn't a big Linux "switch" campaign, and no one's trying to sell Linux as an OS that your average Windows user is just going to pick up, install, and enjoy.
- DracoFlameus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I guess he was joking ;)
- davidhildreth, on 10/10/2007, -7/+11heh, everyone remember back to thursday when there was that story about how hardware support was better on linux than in windows...
- DracoFlameus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I don't think this represents the opnion of the Linux... especially ubuntu community.
Yes there are distros out there solely for all these nerds and geeks ^^ I saw one of them... horrible xD But Ubuntu is different. If they keep up with their work, I'm sure people will switch (like many do nowadays from IE to Firefox). It's not yet finished, but as the saying goes: Good things need their time :) - Anigma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4whats wrong with the terminal. just because you dont know how to use it dosent make it any less of a feasible control scheme.
- burty89, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Only if the OEM installed it, which is exactly the same for linux...
- D3koy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Linux is fun to mess around with, but some times I need to get something done and for me nothing beats XP....
- Skod, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Then I guess you won't be needing your cell phone any time soon.
- linkinpark342, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I'm thinking at that point you're doing something wrong. if its not the software, the hardware, or the isp. i'm thinking its the user... or i'm also thinking it could be some common hardware (router)... but that's not as interesting to say
- jbohlinger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3PEAP has native support now, I do not know anything about MSCHAP
- davidhildreth, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4that's not a generalization
- iisonly, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5cd ~
wget http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/feisty-cafuego/bcm43xx/bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo rm ./bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb
and works fine! - Megatog615, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I'm not sure about the Dell 1370 but some cards don't support things like WPA1 and WPA2.
- tech42er, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Hack, I've had one cheap and one midrange Dell laptop and one heap-mid HP laptop, and they all needed ndiswrapper. It's not MS FUD; it's a reality of running Linux at this time on laptops.
- mikedoth, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7This is exactly what is needed, a buzz campaign. Hopefully the companies are reading this and will respond with driver support. I know I won't buy anything with a Broadcom chip set from here on out until I see better support.
- ralph123, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Oh MioTheUninformed, you don't have to use the terminal.
You just have to download the file, double click it, press ok and be done with it. - Leomarth, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I have a cheap Linksys card, and Ubuntu found it, and configured it out of the box. I had no issues.
- devilishly, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3great, thanks for the tip. I gave up on wireless- now it works thanks.. yes I'm a noob.
- pixelate, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3My wireless works, but dies permanently (until hard reboot) if I suspend and wake up again. This is probably the only reason I don't use Ubuntu on my lappy full time.
- dark_helmet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Far more wireless drivers come with Linux than with any version of windows. Yes it is slightly more difficult to install them, but its not as bad as it used to be. Most of the driver issues are a per distro problem, but there is still a large number of kernel wireless drivers.
- adderx99, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4i run ubuntu 7.04, installed and properly configured ndiswrapper in terminal, and still had a hard time following these instructions. really its pretty easy.
- TKDWILSON, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3ultimate ubuntu 1.4 it works out of the box so to speak. I hope all of those features eventually get incorporated into the official version of ubuntu. :-)
- mythicalbyrd, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Already got it working, bitches. Dell or System76 + Ubuntu preinstalled = working hardware
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