Fuck it, I give up.

[Eagle Bay]

This is just a long, and probably boring rant on why I can't figure out linux.

I reformatted one of my laptops with Ubuntu 7.something, after learning what it is and the difference between distros, and which one I should use. It was tenuous at best. My computer knowledge is limited to a decent understanding of windows. I don't know anything about code or command prompt/console commands.

While I had the earlier ubuntu, my internet was working, and my dvd drive wasn't. Then I put Ubuntu 8.04, and the DVD drive worked fine, but I couldn't connect to the net. Every time I tried to figure out how to get my wireless card/broadband working, the helpfiles didn't help, the FAQ's and trobleshooting pages were either not relevent, or they explained things in a way that I didn't understand.

EG: One part of the helpfiles told me to Check for device recognition: "Open Device Manager (System → Preferences → Hardware Information)." But there is no "Hardware Information" in the preferences list, so that's a dead-end.

As for drivers, I can't even figure out if I have one for the wireless card. When I downloaded a new driver and go to install it, the install file tells me I need to visit another site and build a kernal and do a whole lot of other shit I don't know how to do. When I try to learn things I dont understand, I either come up empty, or it is explained in a way that doesn't actually help.

Of course, without an internet connection, it means I can't visit the various websites I'm directed to from the helpfiles. Seriously, I'm having trouble connecting to a network, and it directs me to a website. Very funny. So I use my other laptop, and I still can't make ass or end of what I get directed to.

tl;dr - Too hard; gave up. Feel free to make fun of me for failing at noobuntu.

[Kamisama]

Originally Posted by Eagle Bay

This is just a long, and probably boring rant on why I can't figure out linux.

I reformatted one of my laptops with Ubuntu 7.something, after learning what it is and the difference between distros, and which one I should use. It was tenuous at best. My computer knowledge is limited to a decent understanding of windows. I don't know anything about code or command prompt/console commands.

While I had the earlier ubuntu, my internet was working, and my dvd drive wasn't. Then I put Ubuntu 8.04, and the DVD drive worked fine, but I couldn't connect to the net. Every time I tried to figure out how to get my wireless card/broadband working, the helpfiles didn't help, the FAQ's and trobleshooting pages were either not relevent, or they explained things in a way that I didn't understand.

EG: One part of the helpfiles told me to Check for device recognition: "Open Device Manager (System → Preferences → Hardware Information)." But there is no "Hardware Information" in the preferences list, so that's a dead-end.

As for drivers, I can't even figure out if I have one for the wireless card. When I downloaded a new driver and go to install it, the install file tells me I need to visit another site and build a kernal and do a whole lot of other shit I don't know how to do. When I try to learn things I dont understand, I either come up empty, or it is explained in a way that doesn't actually help.

Of course, without an internet connection, it means I can't visit the various websites I'm directed to from the helpfiles. Seriously, I'm having trouble connecting to a network, and it directs me to a website. Very funny. So I use my other laptop, and I still can't make ass or end of what I get directed to.

tl;dr - Too hard; gave up. Feel free to make fun of me for failing at noobuntu.

1. Calm down

Welcome to the world of Linux, get ready to read a lot of shit.

2. The filesystem is more important than the distro at the point

http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/

3. The command-line interface is a way of navigating the filesystem

4. I don't trust the wireless drivers that come with Ubuntu, and I don't expect you to trust them: Don't bother with them.

5. You will most likely want to use ndiswrapper.

6. What kind of wireless device are you using? Does it have a name? Inside of windows there is device manager. Tell me the wireless device's name.

7. FAQs and guides tend to be very wordy, which throws off beginners. You need to have patience and calm down.

8. For ubuntu, you need to install build-essential first if you plan on using ndiswrapper from source. I prefer to use ndiswrapper from source. I think that is much better than using the ubuntu repositories. All you need to do is download that ndiswrapper source file to a USB drive or a floppy disk.

9. It is possible to install a wireless device while using the live-cd.

Alright, now continue about your issue.
What is your wireless device?

Most wireless installs work like this:

1. Know what the fuck your device is and who makes it.

2. Know where your driver files are.

These files are typically known as .sys and .inf files.

Example:
blah.sys blah54.inf

They could be just about anywhere in your Windows computer. Use device manager and see what driver the wireless device is using. Otherwise, the drivers should be located someone on an install CD that came with the wireless device. Otherwise, you might be able to download the drivers.

You need those damn drivers either way you look at it.

Windows tends to use these files itself in order to use the wireless device.
And Linux can use ndiswrapper to accomplish the same thing.

3. Install ndiswrapper into your computer
Ndiswrapper uses the same drivers that Windows is using in order to utiliize the wireless device.

4. Make ndiswrapper use those wireless drivers

5. use commands to establish and internet connect

Better yet, you find those damn files, and I'll give you a script.

Of course, without an internet connection, it means I can't visit the various websites I'm directed to from the helpfiles. Seriously, I'm having trouble connecting to a network, and it directs me to a website. Very funny. So I use my other laptop, and I still can't make ass or end of what I get directed to.

tl;dr - Too hard; gave up. Feel free to make fun of me for failing at noobuntu.

That's the catch 22 of getting wireless to work. If you can save things to your harddrive and then mount them while using ubuntu, then you can read them.

At the moment, I believe your problem lies within a lack of understand the filesystem, essential shell scripting skills, and understanding linux network internals.

But you don't need all of that to do this basic thing. Find those damn driver files.

[Eagle Bay]

Okay, well thanks for replying so quick, I'll try to answer as much as I can. First off, the Wireless card is called Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG. I found that out using command "sudo lshw -C network" from the help files.

Here is a screenshot of what comes up.

The two problems I have immediately after this, is that the help files tell me to check whether or not the device is on, and whether or not there is a driver listed. The information up there doesn't mean much to me, besides telling me it has something to do with my wired and wireless networking devices.

Now here I've gone to the filesystem, looking for the driver. I go to the 'sys' folder. I looked in all the folders in both and couldn't find anything in there, or on the 'devices' folder that had anything to do with the intel wireless card name or number.

I don't know what ndiswrapper is, but I'll go and find out.

I have uninstalled windows (vista) that it came preloaded with a while ago, installed ubuntu, then installed fedora 9 hoping a different distro would solve the problem for me, which it didn't. Now I'm running ubuntu on a live cd. I can't go back to vista because I don't have a DVD of it, and besides, I uninstalled it for a reason. If it will help with installing this stuff, I'll reinstall ubuntu 8.04.

Thanks for your help so far. If you need to know anything else, let me know.

[Prometheum]

DON'T distro-hop, its useless.

DON'T waste time installing Ndiswrapper. It doesn't even work with most cards. Likely, a driver is one click away in System>Administration>Hardware Drivers (or Driver Manager or Restricted Driver Manager. Just read the god dammed text and find out what might work for you.

Be patient and be mature. You do not know anything about this. Gnu is not windows nor will it ever be. Don't try to make things like windows. Don't assume things will be like windows. You are in a new world now and if you try to keep on with the customs of the old one you will be swept aside.

"When in Rome...", remember?

Every single time since 7.04 when they released it, the Restricted Driver Manager/Hardware Drivers Manager has been able to do everything I've needed in terms of that. Just plug your laptop into an ethernet network and let it download them using that. You should be fine afterwards.

Before asking for help for anything, google the error you see and 99% of the time something useful will come up. I learned this many years ago the hard way and I hope you don't have to go through the same.

[Eagle Bay]

Originally Posted by Prometheum

DON'T distro-hop, its useless.

DON'T waste time installing Ndiswrapper. It doesn't even work with most cards. Likely, a driver is one click away in System>Administration>Hardware Drivers

There is nothing listed in there. "No Proprietary drivers are in use on this system."

Before asking for help for anything, google the error you see and 99% of the time something useful will come up. I learned this many years ago the hard way and I hope you don't have to go through the same.

Trust me, I have been googling non-stop. I've damn near wore that bastard out with all the searches I've done. But generally, it doesn't make much sense to me.

"When in Rome...", remember?

I'm more than happy to learn the way it's done in Rome, but I don't know how to speak latin yet. I'm trying to, but it's slow-going.

[Prometheum]

Can you not "see" the card in

iwconfig

? Or is the driver there, but not functioning?

According to what I've read, the driver is free software and included in the kernel. It should work "out of the box".

Run and give us the output of the following commands (and start a thread in the Ubuntu Forums, because you will get better support there than here).

iwconfig -a
ifconfig -a
sudo iwlist scan

You might also want to try this and see if it works.

[Kamisama]

It looks like the compute is using the iwl3945 module. I don't have a lot of time right now, but it looks like people have been able to use that module to get things working. Otherwise, some people have opted for ndiswrapper. For what it looks like, you should be able to use the iwl3945 that comes packaged with Ubuntu. There may be some conflicting modules.

Search around on google for the following terms:

iwl3945 ubuntu feisty wlan0 wmaster0

Try a combination of those.

The link Prometheum gave looks like it might work. The first screenshot you gave, if I'm seeing it right, shows that your wireless device is being attached to wmaster0. It would be best to get it attached to wlan0.

The beautiful thing about a live-cd is that you can just reboot if things go to hell.

Originally Posted by Eagle Bay

Now here I've gone to the filesystem, looking for the driver. I go to the 'sys' folder. I looked in all the folders in both and couldn't find anything in there, or on the 'devices' folder that had anything to do with the intel wireless card name or number.

I don't know what ndiswrapper is, but I'll go and find out.

Do learn about ndiswrapper.

And...

If you choose to use ndiswrapper, then you need to be looking through the folders that are in the Windows operating system. I think sometimes stuff is located in C:\Drivers\ these days. There are other ways to get Windows drivers, too.

Also, you don't necessarily have to understand the Linux OS filesystem hierarchy at this moment in time. I just suggest it to all people as a precursor to me helping them. You don't have to understand it right now, but if you do plan on doing more with Linux, you'll eventually want to understand it. You don't need it for the wireless card at the moment unless you plan on mounting an internal HDD to /media/ in order to transfer guides and other files.

Prometheum,

Sometimes the modules that come with a distro work, other times they don't. I've had scenarios where they would work, but when going to certain websites, they would not load completely. This way due to the module that came with the distro. Therefore, I chose Ndiswrapper in order to get the device working.

I somewhat do like ndiswrapper a lot more, because there is less crap to deal with. I think ndiswrapper is much faster. Because if I know it works with the device, then the setup process is similar to just about any other device I would setup with it.

Just remove anything that would be considered a conflicting module, load ndiswrapper, and configure. And Ndiswrapper does work this person's wireless device. It's listed as so on the ndiswrapper site. It looks like for this device, the module that comes with ubuntu works, but the led might not work. That's no big deal, I think.

..

And copy and paste the output of this...

lsmod

[Prometheum]

Sticking to the distro's systems is the best way to utilize the power of the distro. The maintainers of Ubuntu know far more than you, and an LED isn't worth breaking compatibility.

I've used Ndiswrapper before as well. It was the only way to get full speeds with my old Broadcom cards. However, a few months ago I switched to Atheros cards, since they don't require non-free firmware, and since then I've had no reason to use Ndiswrapper.

The fix here is probably just on that link that I posted. Also, apparently this driver doesn't like hidden or "stealthed" access points, so you might want to see if that's the problem.

[Eagle Bay]

Heres the result of the commands prometheus:



That link looks very similar to what I'm seeing so I'll try what he did.

Edit: I can't do what he did unless I install ubuntu again, cause I'm using a live cd...

[rabbitweed]

Originally Posted by Eagle Bay

Heres the result of the commands prometheus:



That link looks very similar to what I'm seeing so I'll try what he did.

Edit: I can't do what he did unless I install ubuntu again, cause I'm using a live cd...

Relatively pointless tidbit: You can copy paste output from the command line by selecting the text and pressing SHIFT CTRL C, and SHIFT CTRL V to paste.

Put it between two tags [#code][/#code] (without the #) then post away.