Specs: Compaq Presario C304 Laptop with Broadcom 802.11g Wireless Network Adapter PCI Factory installed that works well running Windows XP Home, but I installed a copy of Ubuntu using Wubi and Linux does not connect via the wireless I am new to Linux and need some assistance diagnosing the problem. I have read up a little on the Wubi/Ubuntu/Networking and Wireless Forum and am totally confused about some of the issues which may be causing the problem. Where do I start? I have a copy of Everest on the Windows Boot side, so if you require any information about Hardware, I could provide it. If someone could assist here, it would be appreciated.

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Unfortunately Broadcom devices are some of the worst to work with in Linux The solutions to get them working often rely on very lengthy processes tapping various commands in manually. The key, however, is something called ndiswrapper - this allows you to use Windows wireless drivers on Linux. Try the following steps and see how far you get:

1. Find the files on your Windows partition that operate your wireless card. They are often called bcmwl#.inf and bcmwl#.sys where the # is a number (often 5). Look for those files and copy them to a pen drive or something.
2. Boot into Ubuntu and copy those 2 files onto your Desktop.
3. Make sure you have all the repositories enabled in Synaptic - the Ubuntu Wiki has instructions for this.
4. For the next bit to work you need to be connected into the network via a wired connection. You need the Internet to download the packages, so a wired connection is required (as your wireless doesn't work).
5. Open a terminal and type the following lines, hitting enter after each one:
   
   CONSOLE
   
   sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
   [Enter your password]
   sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl#.inf [Replace the # with the right number in the filename]
   sudo ndiswrapper -m
   for conffile in /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5/*.conf; do
   sudo cat $conffile | sed -e 's/RadioState|1/RadioState|0/' > $conffile
   done
   
6. It should work
7. Go into the Networking part of the System Settings (not sure exactly where this is in Ubuntu, I use Kubuntu)
8. Go into the properties for your wireless card (usually wlan0), tick the box to say its configured, and fill in the rest of the info.
9. Now select the card as the default gateway device and click OK

I printed those instructions out quite a while ago so some options may have moved in the System Settings bit, but the general principle should still hold true. If any of it doesn't work, post back with which step failed and I'll see if I can work out why

The unofficial Ubuntu Guide also has a section with helpful instructions on getting Broadcom devices to work, but only if it has a 43## series chipset.

 

 

 

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Thanks to both of you. I'll try this tonight when I get back home.

One question to rvalkass:

Wubi operates from a "file" system rather than a partition. All the Windows files can be viewed and accessed from the Ubuntu file manager, Example: I can open text files from the Windows Desktop after booting into Ubuntu, so will it still be necessary to pen drive those system files and can I download the required files using the Windows Internet access and point to them via Wubi?

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There is no need to pen drive the files across then. Transferring them by pen drive is just so much easier than getting Ubuntu to mount Windows partitions usually. As for the Internet connection - you are not directly transferring files, but the package manager for Ubuntu is transferring and installing them. Ubuntu needs to be able to 'see' the Internet connection and be able to use it to access the Internet. If that is not possible (I presume it isn't as you want to get the wireless card working) then you need to connect to the Internet using an ethernet cable or you can't download the required packages.

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