[Cialug] looking for help with wi-fi

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 7:38 AM, chris rheinherren
<c.rheinherren at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hey All.
>
> I need a bit of help with my laptop's Wi-Fi.
>
> I have a Toshiba Satellite A665-S6094 running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
> On a wired connection I have no trouble connecting at all. But Wi-Fi has
> some troubles connecting.
>
>
Hi, do you happen to know what kind of wifi card you have? I do this:
dmesg | grep eth

And I see about a dozen lines mostly related to the wired ethernet, but this
line shows me what kind of wireless card I have:

[   26.960393] eth1: Broadcom BCM432b 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller
5.60.48.36

Also, in the desktop you can go to System -> Administration -> Driver
Manager (can't remember the precise name in Lucid but it has "driver" in
it). You'll see a screen like the one attached. Sometimes a proprietary
driver is needed and needs to be enabled. Sometimes there are more than one
driver options available and the other one works better. (Ubuntu does this
as a compromise, preferring more open source compatible drivers over
non-open source options)

If you have a wired network connection available this part might work better
if you're plugged in via ethernet since it will often need to download the
driver.


> 1) Takes several attempts before Wi-Fi connects even if there is no
> security at all on the wireless signal. Sometimes this takes several reboots
> to get it to connect. This will happen even if the computer was connected
> via Wi-Fi and went into hibernation due to the lid being closed on the
> laptop. It doesn't reconnect without being rebooted several times.
>
>
I used to have a problem with my wifi. The Canonical support dept gave me
this suggestion, instead of rebooting:

sudo rmmod wl
sudo modprobe wl

However that is a hack, it would be better to fix the prob. But at least you
don't have to reboot. At one time I had commands like that in the init
scripts that ran after resume. (I can't remember what those scripts are
called at the moment)


> 2) The network manager applet while attempting to connect and doesn't will
> sometimes just vanish from the Gnome panel.
>

That is not good, but maybe it will self correct when the other problem is
solved.

The rule of thumb with any Linux is that newer is better when it comes to
drivers. If you're having trouble with Lucid, try 10.10 live cd or thumb
drive version to see if it helps.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." -Benjamin Franklin
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