Acer Aspire 5742

[Philllip.Gresha]

Hi,

I thought I got what was a killer deal on a nice Acer Aspire 5742 laptop. However, the wireless doesn't seem to work in Linux. In Windows 7, I press <fn><f3>, and I get a small control panel that I can use to activate the wireless. Works great....except in Linux.

Pressing the <fn><f3> combo doesn't seem to do anything, although other <fn> key combos like brightness and volume do.

Any idea how to get wireless working? I tried looking on Acer's website, but I can't find anything helpful. I don't want to return it if I don't have to. It's a really nice laptop, and I'd have to eat the restocking fee.


Thanks.

[oupsemma]

Your computer seems to have an InviLink Nplify 802.11b/g/n wireless LAN; you can find all its specs here:
http://www.laptop-software.com/acer-...-specs-review/

http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?30,7...9238#msg-79238 states that:

Acer InviLink is a branding for 5 different driver types.Intel, RaLink and 3 types of Atheros drivers.

So, you must first find which driver is yours.

For that:
1) Check whether your wifi card is directly recognized by the system or not:

$ iwconfig

if it isn't, you'll get something like that:

[oupsemma@fedoreee ~]$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

if it is, like this:

[oupsemma@fedoreee ~]$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=8 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

In this later case, you can use whichever GUI network manager to deal with your wifi connection.
(NetworkManager, Wicd, KWifiManager...)

2) If your card is not recognized by the system, then you have to install it, and for that you've got to know the exact model and chipset of the card:
open a terminal and type:

lspci | grep -i net

ex:

[oupsemma@fedoreee ~]$ lspci | grep -i net
01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2860
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 Gigabit or Fast Ethernet (rev b0)

(search for lines with wireless, wlan, Network)
Write down the exact name and chipset and find informations on how to install it.

[Philllip.Gresha]

I did try the iwconfig, and I get

lo no wireless extensions

lspci returns

Broadcom BCM43225 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)

I did some searching once I ran the lspci, and one person said on another Acer 5000 series laptop, he removed ndiswrapper, installed broadcom-wl, and life is happy.

I'm hoping my life will be as happy as well.


Thank you for the reply,

[oupsemma]

You'll find all you need there: http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...d.php?t=254328

[Philllip.Gresha]

Thank you to everyone who replied.

Adding broadcom-wl resolved the issue with the wireless. I didn't need to download either of the other two programs listed in the link.

And, once I added the mac address to my AP filter, I can connect, and life is good.