Anybody familiar with Ubuntu? How do I get wireless to work?

Question

I've been trying to get help on ubuntuforums.org but they have been of zero help.

I have Ubuntu partitioned on my computer so that I can boot with Windows or Ubuntu. My problem is that the "wireless connections" option is greyed out and it will not let me add it manually.

People say you need to install chipsets sometimes or the correct wireless driver and I swear I have tried these things but 8 hours later, I'm still wireless in Ubuntu and have to switch back to Windows everytime I need to ask a question.

Cany anybody help me figure this out? Please?

Answer 1

Here is the Official Ubuntu Wireless Documentation



Cards Supported

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported



Troubleshooting/Howto/General

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WiFiHowTo



Here is the Official Ubuntu Ndiswrapper Documentation

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper



The Synaptic Package Manager is not included as default on Ubuntu 11.10 and needs to be installed. Open a Terminal and submit the following command



sudo apt-get install synaptic





LUg.

Answer 2

I have the exact same problem with Debian (more-or-less the same thing as Ubuntu)



The problem is that Ubuntu (linux actually) doesnt have a driver to load the wireless card. Simply put, it doesnt know how to "talk" to your card. Some cards have drivers built in and pre-installed, but other cards have to have their drivers manually installed.



You never specified which wireless card you are having trouble with, so I can't tell you specifically how to install the driver. I can say to do a google search for "[your network card] + linux driver". That should get you some responses and knowledge on the topic.



You will probably be required to install a program called ndiswrapper. Instead of following the complex instructions that most sites will give you, go to Ubuntu's package manager and in the query box type "ndiswrapper". That may solve the problem then and there, as ndiswrapper may automatically detect and install the missing driver.



Otherwise good luck to you! I've been in your boat, and it took me days to finally get it to work.. In the end, however, it was well worth it. Linux > Win32 :)

Answer 3

I am assuming this is a pci card?



Open a terminal and input:

lspci -vv | grep -i wireless



This should tell you the wireless nic and the chip that it has. From there you can see if there is a driver (native to Linux), to which you may build and install it.



ⱰⱰUPDATEⱰⱰ

Upon looking at the results that you posted with the lspci -nnk | grep, it seems that the kernel loaded the wrong driver. You can obtain the Ralink driver for Linux here : http://www.ralinktech.com/en/04_support/support.php?sn=501 (RT3062PCI/mPCI/CB/PCIe(RT3060/RT3062/RT3562/RT3592))



1. After you download the archive file, you need to extract the files to a location on you computer, (within your home folder will do). Do this via the mouse or the terminal. There is one thing that you need to check before you attempt to compile this.



2. After extracting, you will get a folder "DPO_RT3562_3592_3062_LinuxSTA_V2.4.1.1_20101217" within this folder open up os > linux . Within the Linux Folder, find the file config.mk and open it up.



In the config.mk Locate;



# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=n



# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Manager

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=n



**and change the n's to y's like so:



# Support Wpa_Supplicant

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y



# Support Native WpaSupplicant for Network Manager

HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y



save it and exit.



3. Now you need to make sure that you have the latest Linux Header, and the compiler. Open a terminal, connect to the Internet via Ethernet and input: (You may copy and paste to the terminal via the mouse).



sudo aptitude install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential



4. After this is done, you will need to log into the super user account via the terminal. To do this, type in "su" (without quotations) and hit enter. It should prompt you for a password, if it doesn't, you will need to set up a root user password (to do this type in "su passwd" and hit enter. Then enter a new password to the root account).



5. When you are in the root account, you will need to change to the proper directory. You can do this by right clicking with the mouse in the DPO_RT3562_3592_3062_LinuxSTA_V2.4.1.1_20101217 and click on open in terminal or enter via the terminal and type in:



(VIA Terminal, this is assuming that you extract the files to the home folder)

cd /home/user/DPO_RT3562_3592_3062_LinuxSTA_V2.4.1.1_20101217



User will be your user account, to quicken this, type in a couple of the characters and hit tab which will complete the input for you.



When in the proper director, copy and paste this in:



make && make install && modprobe rt2860sta && lsmod | grep rt2860sta &&echo rt2860sta >> /etc/modules





6. Type in "exit" to exit out of the root account, and reboot your computer. From there you should have Wireless access.



NOTE: Ubuntu sends out Patched Kernels every once in a while which replaces the old one, when you install a patched kernel from them, you get a different Linux Header, and you will need to reinstall the driver again. (You will not have to worry about installing the compiler again, just follow from step 5)

Answer 4

Hello, do you know what model number is you wireless card, not all wireless cards support Ubuntu. I use Ralink WLan Card and it works perfect with Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit.