(SOLVED) Installed Zorin, cannot get wireless card to work

Hello all,
First, let me start by saying I'm blown away by this operating system and the community. I am really looking forward to using this OS, and I have just ONE problem, I cannot for the life of me get ndiswrapper installed, or get my wireless network card to work. I installed the free 32 bit Zorin 8 on my Dell Inspirion Mini 10, I hunted down the driver from dell, extracted the .inf (because it was in a stupid .exe, which by the way I'm assuming the US_DRIVERS folder containing the .inf is the right one??) file and attmpted to use the windows wireless drivers program to install my .inf, and I get a fatal error regarding ndiswrapper.

I have been using my ethernet connection just fine, and it installed some updates, but in the Zorin FAQ on the home page, it says the following:
My wireless networking isn't working. How do I get it to work?
If your wireless networking is not working automatically please check the "Additional Drivers" program in Zorin OS to see if there are any third-party drivers available for your wireless card. You will need to use Ethernet Internet access for this. Another solution is the Windows Wireless Drivers program. You will need to get the Windows version of the drivers for your wireless card. This program installs these drivers to your Zorin OS system.



My first question is, Where on earth is the "Additional Drivers" program in Zorin OS? Maybe I don't need to use this Windows Wireless Drivers program if I can find where the heck it is.
I searched for it and can only find the windows wireless drivers program.

And when I attempt to install my .inf file it of course gives me the fatal message because I obviously don't have ndiswrapper installed, but here is the kicker! I downloaded and extracted ndiswrapper-1.59 to my downloads folder, following this great posts instructions, word for word.

madvinegar wrote:I have seen that there is a problem with the windows wireless drivers module (ndiswrapper) in Zorin 6 core.
Through terminal I have tried to see the version installed and the message of the terminal was that the version is too old.

Therefore, you should install the latest ndiswrapper as follows:

Go here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswra ... es/stable/ and download the latest stable version (i.e. ndiswrapper-1.57.tar.gz)

Go to your Downloads folder, find the ndiswrapper-1.57.tar.gz file, right-click it and select "extract here".

Then open terminal and navigate to the extracted folder and install ndiswrapper as follows:

Code:

cd home/yourusername/Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.57
sudo make
sudo make install

Ofcourse replace "yourusername" with... your username!
This will install the latest ndiswrapper and hopefully your wireless windows .inf files will now work.

But when I enter my first command,

Code:

cd home/yourusername/Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.59

i get a "no such directory or file exists"
Obviously I use my own username, which is "derf", and I even check my spelling and double and tripple check my spelling and I still get that error.

But let me clarify my username is the name that appears when I log into Zorin right? I've tried both "DerfSnoogins" which is my username when I log into Zorin, as well as "derf" which is what my terminal says when I load it "derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$" So is my username "derf" or "DerfSnoogins"?

I'm so sorry to bother you guys, but I've tried to be independent up until this point but have failed. Any help and I would be really grateful, this is literally my ONLY issue with this operating system.

Hi.
There is a typo. A "/" sign is missing in front of home. It should be

cd /home/yourusername/Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.59

Apologies for the typo.

You could also try it like this:

cd /home/$USER/Downloads/ndiswrapper-1.59

Do not change anything. Leave $USER as it is.

But please read my detailed guide here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5008&p=23910&hilit=ndiswrapper#p23910


P.s.: However, why would you like to use ndiswrapper for your wireless card? Are you sure that you cannot activate your card using a native driver?
Can you please post back here the result of the following terminal command:

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

EDIT:

NEVERMIND, my laptop started slowing down, as if something was eating up the RAM, I was unable to move anytihng. After I rebooted it, I can NO LONGER connect to the internet, but my propritary driver still says it is installed correctly in synap.

Here is the console line code after typing the first line,

derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27ac] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27ae] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: i915
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 [8086:27d2] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3 [8086:27d4] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b9] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] [8086:27c4] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless-N WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000d]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ grep -iA2 net
grep -iA2 net
grep -iA2 net
derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless-N WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000d]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02f4]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$





Hello sir, thank you for your response,

being the noob I am, i just read the thread below me about a similar problem, and guess what? I finally found additional drivers in the repositories section of the Synaptic, and it installed and fixed itself for me.

I can now search for any wifi connection.

NOT SOLVED - EDIT

Your card is
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01

This card works with the proprietary wl driver.
You plug an ethernet cable to get internet, and then you either just enabled it from additional drivers, or issue the following commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe -r wl
sudo modprobe wl

This is why i told you that you most probably don't need to use ndiswrapper. Broadcom is well supported by linux.

So, should we mark the topic as solved?

Thank you again for your continued help, with your command line code, I was able to turn my wifi card on it seems, but do I have to do this every time I boot? I tried restarting my laptop 3 times, and it would not connect unless the command line code was entered. If this is the case, that is not a big deal (I don't really mind doing it, I'm just curious)

Let me show you what my console says after the code is entered.

Code:

derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
[sudo] password for derf:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
bcmwl-kernel-source is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-json-1.0 gir1.2-timezonemap-1.0 gir1.2-xkl-1.0 libxss1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ sudo modprobe -r wl
derf@LinuxBoxDerf:~$ sudo modprobe wl

Right now in Synap, the additional driver that is being used is indeed the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source from bcmwl-kernel-source (prprietary). Just like you said.

Like I said I'm not trying to be picky, I really don't mind entering those command line prompts every time I boot up my machine, I'm just curious if that is normal.

Thank you so much for your help, I am currently posting this on my wireless connection after entering those commands.

-nick

Open terminal and run the following command:

echo 'wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Then restart and your wireless should be loading automatically.

Let me know if all is ok.

Thank you so much, after that command, now after every reboot my machine is working fine with my wireless network card as well.

Thank you again for all your help. - solved

Glad I helped.

120 blue ones to madvinegar - I do wish they were Bit Coins - but then I would be broke!