Weird wireless issues in Dell Vostro 1700

[Hunkah]

Hello, I am having some issues with the way fedora is handling my wireless card in my laptop.

I am not an expert in Linux, but I am not a total idiot.

I am sure it is a driver issue, because when I tried ubuntu live, it told me there were 3rd party drivers available for my device, and they installed after clicking the list it gave me.

Problem fixed in Ubuntu.

But I don't want to go with ubuntu. I have used fedora for all my setups and practice servers since fedora started. So I have gotten used to the command line in fedora, (Things like ll to list) and I feel sorta loyal to it.

So, here are the things I have tried:

I have tried to turn off my wireless switch on my laptop and it seems to do nothing except turn off my bluetooth.

I have used networkmanager, but my device isn't listed under wirless devices.

I have tried to install hwbrowser, but it crashes.

I have tried device lister, and it doesn't show up.

I have tried every other network helper/hardware browser/network device tool, and none of them work.

So my problem is... I don't know how to install a driver for something I can't see. Actually, I don't know how to install a driver to begin with!

OK, maybe I am a total idiot.

[stoat]

Hello Hunkah,

Yeah, some wireless cards that "just work" in Ubuntu need some help in Fedora. But the Fedora kernel does include driver modules for many wireless cards. Some "just work". Some need something such as firmware. Even cards not supported by Fedora often still can be used with ndiswrapper and their XP driver. To find out about your situation, you need to identify the chipset in your wireless card...lspci -nn | grep -i -e network -e wireless
lsusbOne of those terminal commands might give some useful information needed to determine the next step. Maybe not.

[Hunkah]

lspci -nn | grep -i -e network -e wireless
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. OV2640 Webcam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0a5c:4503 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 0a5c:4502 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 413c:8126 Dell Computer Corp. Wireless 355 Bluetooth
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c03d Logitech, Inc. M-BT96a Pilot Optical Mouse


Thank-you so much for your help.

[stoat]

lspci -nn | grep -i -e network -e wireless
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)That chipset is known to work with the new Broadcom 802.11 STA Linux driver. The binary yum-installable version available from the RPM Fusion repo is very popular. If you want to try it, then install the RPM Fusion repos if you have a way to connect by wire...su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm'
su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'Important Note: I didn't notice that this thread was started in the Fedora 12 Alpha-Beta forum, and nothing was said about Fedora 12 until later posts in the thread. As of this date, you would need to the install the RPM Fusion Rawhide repo to get the broadcom-wl files for Fedora 12. After Fedora 12 is released, these instructions will be valid as originally written.
Then check your kernel version...uname -rIf you're using the i686 PAE kernel (likely), then install the driver like this...su
yum install kmod-wl-PAEIf you're using the i586 kernel or the x86_64 kernel, then try this...yum install kmod-wlAfter that, reboot or restart the NetworkManager service and look in the NetworkManager panel applet for available networks.

If you can't connect by wire, then you can download the three rpm packages from RPM Fusion. Somehow get them on your computer and manually install them. You need the common kmod-wl (kmod-wl or kmod-wl-PAE), the kernel specific kmod-wl (i586 or i686 PAE), and broadcom-wl. And of course, if you're using the 64-bit kernel, then get the x86_64 versions of those three rpms.

[stoat]

I had to correct an important typo faux pas in my last post. Read it again before doing anything. Sorry.

[GoinEasy9]

I have the same card in my Dell XPS 13 and just want add to the thread.
To get my wifi running, I used "yum install broadcom-wl" to install drivers. With that install I now have akmod-wl also, which I assume means that after a kernel upgrade, the module will be rebuilt for the new kernel.
It also installed the correct kmod-wl-PAE package automagically.
Just wanted to say this worked for me.

[Hunkah]

OK, I am using the fedora beta 12 live, and will be making the commitment to switch over to linux FINALLY from windows. I have been wanting to do this since fedora 5... and 3 computers ago... but still relied on too many windows programs to do my tasks. I still have a few that I rely on for things, so I am hoping to do them through wine... if not, I will figure something else out.

The ones I will miss most is Yahoo! IM, because I rely heavily on Yahoo! based services, but they don't want to support a Linux client, so I am going to have to say screw them... I am moving on.

I know Google has services and pidgin and empathy are alternative options, but nothing works as well as the Yahoo! IM client (in my opinion of course).

Winamp is the other... I love it. I know the other alternatives, but again, I love Winamp and use it all day every day. Until Fedora 12 comes along, then I will probably never use it again.

Everything else has a Linux alternative, or something better.

I will let you know what happens when I boot back into Fedora Live

[stoat]

Well, if you're going to install Fedora 12, then you may need to install the rawhide repos at RPM Fusion for the Broadcom stuff. Since Fedora 12 is still testing, expect things to be broken. Not the best way to start out with Fedora IMO. The Fedora 11 release will continue to be fully supported until after Fedora 13 is released. I recommend that you consider F11. To me, it's the best Fedora yet anyway.

P.S.: I apologize for not noticing that this thread was started in the Fedora 12 Alpha-Beta forum. Nothing about Fedora 12 was posted until now. Therefore, I didn't mention the need to install the RPM Fusion Rawhide repo above. Except for that, I stand by what I wrote above.