TheGift73

Hi,

Firstly let me apologise to my complete lack of knowledge when it comes to Linux.

My flat mate has just returned from visiting his brother and has completely wiped Vista from his laptop and had his brother install Ubuntu onto it.

He now can't access the internet. I realise that during the install he probably wiped all of his drivers in the process, so I am asking if anyone knows how I would go about getting the required drivers and installing/ configuring them.

I have read in a few Linux forums that there is no support for Linux OS on the L40 139. I'm really hoping that this is not the case.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Richard.

shuuhen

Drivers are OS-specific, so any drivers that left with Vista were Vista-only drivers. Linux drivers generally come with the kernel (the main part of the OS), but there have been occasional exceptions. Basically "support" is a relative term when it comes to Linux. It won't be official tech support from a company, but there's generally a good amount of support for Linux out there.

How is he trying to access the internet? From wireless or a wired (ethernet) connection? Wired most likely should work right away, but wireless could be more complicated.

TheGift73

Hi shuuhen,

Thank you for your quick response.

It's wireless unfortunately. The router (Netgear DG834PN) is two floors up from him in my room.
Here are the specs on the unit in question.

I hope that link helps?

shuuhen

What I'll need to know to come up with ideas about the wireless is the output from lspci (you may have to run sudo lspci or /usr/sbin/lspci). In Ubuntu, you would run this from Terminal (Konsole in KDE, many other options available :) ). After running that command, post the output here. From that I might get a better idea of what driver you'll need.

TheGift73

Hi Shuuhen,

gareth@gareth-laptop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
05:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)
05:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
gareth@gareth-laptop:~$

Hope this helps?

Richard

TheGift73

Solved it!

Wired connection wasn't an issue as it was plug and play, but getting it to access the net via wireless was the goal here.

First I ran in terminal

1] sudo apt-get update

Then the following:-

First of all go to "System/Administration/Hardware Drivers" and disable by un-ticking the box.:

Code:

Atheros Hardware Access Layor (Hal)

Then Reboot

Then open the terminal "Applications/Accessories/Terminal" and copy the following:

Code:

wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special...+ar5007.tar.gz

Code:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Code:

tar xfz madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz

Code:

cd madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007

Code:

make

Code:

sudo make install

Code:

sudo modprobe ath_pci

Code:

sudo reboot


Then next time I looked in my network area I could see the wireless interface enabled. Then just configure it to your router...gateway etc and it's all good.

Thank you for all your help though shuuhen, it seems that the network driver for the wireless feature on this particular machine needed a patch.

Even though I have never used Linux before, I am tempted to run it on this computer once I finish building my new rig, as I found the whole experience pretty interesting.

shuuhen

You're welcome for the help. Congrats on getting wireless working!

Atheros is a good chipset to have as far as wireless. Some others can be a pain to get working (Broadcom especially), but I can only remember hearing good things about Atheros and the Madwifi drivers.

Thanks for marking your thread "solved" and posting what worked for you.