G+_Justin Egan Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Ok, I'm hoping you guys can help. I have and old Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop from 2007. I gutted the hard drive and optical drive. Installed a 60gb ssd (basically want to build my own chrombook) installed ubuntu. Here's my problem. My wireless worked fine in windows but doesn't work at all in Ubuntu. I'm new to Linux and don't know what to do. Do I need a driver or do I have to replace the wireless card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Eddie Foy Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Drivers, especially WiFi, on Linux are typically lagging. It may be easier to just get a USB adapter that is supported. dmesg may shed some light. ifconfig and iwconfig might show some info too. If you know the chipset of the adapter, you cna search if its support/has a drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Adam EL-Idrissi Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I have a old Compaq that the wireless doesn't work in any version from 10.10+ in Ubuntu but fedora 13 works just fine with WiFi. I took out the WiFi internal adapter because it's plugged into the network but if I do need to movevit around I use a USB adapter. I would go with what Eddie said and then if need be repkacecthe internal adapter or go USB(Alfa ftw personally). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Steve C Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Wi-Fi driver support in Linux is hit or miss, some distros will work and some won't. Try Linux Mint, it works OK on my Dell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Dean Chauvin Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I have this same Inspiron. With a Windows install (Win7 Pro), the OS would grind the hard drive to death. I don't know why. It was unusable. So, I recently switched to Linux. LINUX Mint, specifically. I had the same problem with wifi. Can you connect your laptop up to a wired connection temporarily, fully update it, and then see if your wireless will work? If that doesn't work (that didn't work for me), I did a search for the Broadcom chipset I had inside my laptop and uninstalled all Broadcom wireless stuff from the software manager. I then installed a different Broadcom driver from the software manager (I don't remember which one). That got it working. Try to fight or what wireless chipset your computer has and Google it and how to get it to work in Linux. Another fix is to buy a very cheap wifi dongle. I have an nano-sized USB Edimax one I got for my Raspberry Pi. It worked without a problem after a fresh Mint install. I was able to use to to download all of my Broadcom software so I could use the built in wifi hardware. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Brian Moses Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 here's a link http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1974006 you need the b43 firmware (driver) package for your Broadcom wifi chip. Do a search with your package manager for b43. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Justin Egan Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 Ok, mission successful! got the broadcom mini card working! Next question. I'm running an Intel Pentium dual core CPU with 2 gigs ram. is ubuntu best choice? I was looking at Lubuntu or Xubuntu for efficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Eddie Foy Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Picking a distro is like picking a religion, just with more infighting and opinions :) I like Kali, kinda, but that's basically a single purpose OS. I have a headless Ubuntu server, but that's just running oclHashcat. Mint and Arch are also highly regarded distros. http://distrowatch.com/ is a nice source of info. Its the package manager and repository 'completeness' that are a HUGE key in picking one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Marsh Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 The desktop environment will have an effect on performance. If it's not very speedy with a basic Ubuntu install, try Lubuntu or Xubuntu, as they tend to be less taxing. Either of those will come with a different set of baseline applications, as well, providing for a smaller footprint on the HDD. A couple years ago I was repurposing old desktops to use for BOINC, and settled on Lubuntu for it's light weight and ease of use. Most software you'd want to run on Ubuntu will also run fine on the ubuntu derivatives, as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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