Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04

Issac · 10-07-2008, 11:37 AM

So far this has been a wild ride. Hours so far of searching various forums, scavenging google, and reinstalling a few times have brought me here. I still have a ways to go, too, but at least I've made a little progress.

My two main concerns for right now are as follows:
Atheros AR5009 wlan NIC
nVidia GeForce 8200m

To begin with, I installed the AMD64 version. Installed and booted fine, but wlan would not work at all. The physical wireless button up top was stuck on orange and would not budge to blue. Also, the disabled nvidia device driver, when enabled, fails to download. I did a little research and gave up early because I know 64bit still sucks.

So I reverted back to x86. Wlan still was a lost cause on install, but the nvidia restricted driver actually downloaded and installed. Rebooted the computer aaaaand black screen. Seems the driver didn't take. I'm still pretty new to linux and haven't used it for a few years, so my fix for that was a clean reinstall.

I scavenged my search options. I found the solution to my video driver issues, though not completely. At least now I have my full 1280x800 resolution display. Link:
http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

The only issue I'm having with that involves display artifacts when the framerate gets too high. For example, scrolling down a webpage quickly. A minor annoyance with general computer use, but open up a game and it would be a nightmare I'd imagine.

As for wlan? Well, I tried a couple things. First, what didn't work. Then, as of right now, what only works halfway.
This didn't work:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=865971

Following those instructions did nothing for me, despite everyone's success. However, I'm not surprised as not all devices behave alike. With the install of the madwifi drivers, nothing happened. My NIC still wasn't being picked up by the network manager.

Second method I found involved the mac atheros drivers compiled into a debian package. Link:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...62&postcount=3

This method got ubuntu to realize my wlan NIC exists. The button is blue up top as if everything is honkey dory. Just one problem, though. It can't pick up any wireless networks, it's borked. I tried through the GUI and through "sudo iwlist scan." Nada. When I try to connect to my wireless network manually with the correct settings, it just hangs.

One last thing, too. I haven't investigated much into it yet, but, the sound is scratchy and intolerable.
My chipset is nForce, not sure which revision.

That's where I am, now. If anyone has had any similar issues or experiences, or if anyone has found some solutions, please share them here. I would definitely appreciate it. :)

Issac · 10-08-2008, 09:18 AM

I was able to find out more specific chipset information.

nForce MCP77MV is the northbridge. There really isn't a lot of information about this chipset, yet.

I hear there's troubles with nForce chipsets on ubuntu in general. Any ideas?

**wmorri** · 10-08-2008, 06:21 PM

Hi,

Sorry to hear that you are having such problems with Ubuntu. You said that you went here. I am guessing that you used this guide, from the guides portion of the site.

As for your wlan card. I have done a little searching for you and remembered the program Ndiswrapper. This is a program that allows you to install your windows wifi drivers on your linux machine. The easiest way to get Ndiswrapper is by following these steps:

Click on System, then [Administrator[/b]
Go down the list and choose Synaptic Package Manager.
You will be asked to enter your Administrator Password so do that.
Synaptic will open then click on the Search button.
Enter in the search field Ndiswrapper.
You will have three packages come up ndisgtk, ndiswrapper-common, ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 choose mark for installation, then install them.

That should help you with getting your wifi to start to work, if not get rid of your wifi problems.

Cheers!

Issac · 10-09-2008, 01:53 AM

A quick correction on my first post, it won't let me edit it for some silly reason.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...62&postcount=3
That's regarding the mac wlan drivers that worked halfway.

Thanks for the reply, wmorri.

I gave ndiswrapper an honest shot, using the original driver from HP for my wireless card.
Source:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...747533&lang=en
It's further down the page;
Atheros Wireless LAN Driver 06-2008 2.00 B » Version: 20.64M

I extracted the package w/ cabextract:

Code:

athrext.cat   athrx.sys  data2.cab    netathr.inf   setup.exe  setup.iss
athrextx.cat  data1.cab  ISSetup.dll  netathrx.inf  setup.ini  SP39403.cva
athr.sys      data1.hdr  layout.bin   _Setup.dll    setup.inx

I got these two files for use:
netathr.inf
athr.sys

ndiswrapper gladly took these and convincingly said, "Okay, sir! You're good to go!"

... :(

Restart the system, no go. Next I try:

sudo gedit /etc/modules
added "ndiswrapper" on its own line.

I assume this is somewhat similar to Run in the registry or somesuch.

Restarted the system, nada.

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper doesn't show or tell me anything.

"ndiswrapper -l" returns:

Code:

netathr : driver installed
	device (168C:002A) present

Yet iwconfig only returns lo and eth0.

sudo ndiswrapper -m:

Code:

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

module configuration already contains alias directive

**wmorri** · 10-09-2008, 07:05 AM

Hi,

Sorry that this didn't work the first time. Can you please type:

Code:

lspci

into terminal and then post the output.

Cheers!

Issac · 10-09-2008, 08:24 AM

Code:

07:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. Unknown device 002a (rev 01)

Code:

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0754 (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 075e (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0752 (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0753 (rev a2)
00:01.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0568 (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 077b (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 077c (rev a1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 077d (rev a1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 077e (rev a1)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0759 (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0774 (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 075a (rev a1)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0ad0 (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0760 (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0569 (rev a1)
00:14.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 077a (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h HyperTransport Configuration (rev 40)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Link Control
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0845 (rev a2)
07:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. Unknown device 002a (rev 01)

Hope this helps. :)

**wmorri** · 10-09-2008, 08:54 AM

Hi, Thanks for posting that. It did help me a bit. I would like you to follow Section 3.5 and 3.6 from start to finish from this document. Follow each step as written. If you come up with any error messages post them up here and I will help you work through them.

Cheers!

Issac · 10-09-2008, 09:29 AM

That's actually the very document I used when replying to you initially. Thanks for pointing out that step, though. Maybe that's where it's going wrong?

Literal results:

Code:

issac@izzylap:~$ sudo depmod -a
[sudo] password for issac: 
issac@izzylap:~$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
issac@izzylap:~$ tail /var/log/messages
Oct  9 10:59:56 izzylap dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.reason
Oct  9 10:59:58 izzylap kernel: [   49.134614] NET: Registered protocol family 17
Oct  9 11:00:01 izzylap dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.host_name
Oct  9 11:00:01 izzylap dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.nis_domain
Oct  9 11:00:01 izzylap dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.nis_servers
Oct  9 11:00:01 izzylap dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.interface_mtu
Oct  9 11:00:02 izzylap kernel: [   52.133062] NET: Registered protocol family 10
Oct  9 11:00:02 izzylap kernel: [   52.133294] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
Oct  9 11:00:14 izzylap pulseaudio[5945]: alsa-util.c: Cannot find fallback mixer control "Mic".
Oct  9 11:19:51 izzylap -- MARK --
issac@izzylap:~$

Nothing really happened, maybe that log tells you something I can't see. :)

ifconfig:

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1d:72:70:89:0d  
          inet addr:192.168.1.106  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21d:72ff:fe70:890d/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1440 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1390 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:1126989 (1.0 MB)  TX bytes:263448 (257.2 KB)
          Interrupt:221 Base address:0x4000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1136 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1136 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:56800 (55.4 KB)  TX bytes:56800 (55.4 KB)

**wmorri** · 10-09-2008, 02:19 PM

Are you currently connected to the internet using a NIC? If so that is mostly likely your main problem. Have you tried to disconnect your ethernet cable and then use your wireless card.

Quote:

Code:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1d:72:70:89:0d
inet addr:192.168.1.106 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21d:72ff:fe70:890d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1440 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1390 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1126989 (1.0 MB) TX bytes:263448 (257.2 KB)
Interrupt:221 Base address:0x4000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:1136 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1136 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:56800 (55.4 KB) TX bytes:56800 (55.4 KB)

This looks to me like you are connected with a NIC. The first line tells me how you are connected, and your MAC address. Second shows your ip address, and subnet mask.

Cheers!

Issac · 10-09-2008, 04:50 PM

Being connected with a NIC (eth0) would prevent ubuntu from seeing my wlan NIC? For real?

That seems kinda silly.
I'll try booting without a wired connection now and get back to you regarding that, thanks!

Update; I booted up into ubuntu with no network cable connected. Still didn't pick up on the wlan NIC, though.

Code:

issac@izzylap:~$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1d:72:70:89:0d  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:221 Base address:0x4000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1246 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1246 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:62300 (60.8 KB)  TX bytes:62300 (60.8 KB)

issac@izzylap:~$

Seems it still won't work, and I'm totally lost. Haha. I don't know how the link works between the driver and the listing in ifconfig.

**wmorri** · 10-10-2008, 05:54 AM

I have sent a pm to one of the other members here, I think that they have some more experience than I do with this issue. It should only be a day or so for them to look at the thread and have some ideas.

Cheers!

shuuhen · 10-12-2008, 01:04 PM

To be sure I understand the current state of things: Video system works, but wireless doesn't? Fortunately Atheros has historically been one of the better chipsets to have, due to the madwifi drivers. There are some newer Atheros chips that I think require one of a couple newer drivers (all open source).

Some information from your machine that will help is the output from these commands

Code:

ifconfig -a

lsmod

uname -r

ifconfig -a lists all interfaces, even non-configured ones. lsmod lists kernel modules currently loaded. uname -r lists what kernel you are running, which is important in the case you need to install binary modules from an Ubuntu package repository.

You don't need to worry about having a cable plugged in while figuring out wireless. It might stop your computer from using the wireless interface, but it would still show up. If you wanted to force your computer to use the wireless interface, you would need to change the routing tables with the route program. Don't worry about that for now, but if you want/need to do that we'll help.

I'll need a little time to figure out what driver you should be using (and maybe how to install it), but it should be either madwifi, ath5k or ath9k. All of them are Linux drivers, which means they should work better than a Windows driver and ndiswrapper. From a quick look at the HP site for your driver, I think you'll need the ath9k driver since your device appears to be a 802.11n (pre-N) device.

jontn_swift · 02-13-2009, 09:09 PM

I just got a CQ50Z also and haven't yet installed Linux on it as I needed to have it working full boat, and I just can't leave Vista on it. I shrank the Vista Partition and put XP on one half of it. Next I intend to blow away Vista, and slice that partition up for Ubuntu.

Anyway, everything I was reading about the laptop said it had an Atheros AR5009 WLAN chip, but when I googled the device ID, everything pointed to Broadcom chips. As it turned out, that's what I have. Once I installed the Broadcom driver wireless came on and just worked.

Now that I know that I suspect that getting it working in Linux may be better than I thought it was going to be.

10-07-2008, 11:37 AM	#1 (permalink)
Issac Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: CT Posts: 21 OS: Vista Ultimate/Basic SP1 My System	Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 So far this has been a wild ride. Hours so far of searching various forums, scavenging google, and reinstalling a few times have brought me here. I still have a ways to go, too, but at least I've made a little progress. My two main concerns for right now are as follows: Atheros AR5009 wlan NIC nVidia GeForce 8200m To begin with, I installed the AMD64 version. Installed and booted fine, but wlan would not work at all. The physical wireless button up top was stuck on orange and would not budge to blue. Also, the disabled nvidia device driver, when enabled, fails to download. I did a little research and gave up early because I know 64bit still sucks. So I reverted back to x86. Wlan still was a lost cause on install, but the nvidia restricted driver actually downloaded and installed. Rebooted the computer aaaaand black screen. Seems the driver didn't take. I'm still pretty new to linux and haven't used it for a few years, so my fix for that was a clean reinstall. I scavenged my search options. I found the solution to my video driver issues, though not completely. At least now I have my full 1280x800 resolution display. Link: http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html The only issue I'm having with that involves display artifacts when the framerate gets too high. For example, scrolling down a webpage quickly. A minor annoyance with general computer use, but open up a game and it would be a nightmare I'd imagine. As for wlan? Well, I tried a couple things. First, what didn't work. Then, as of right now, what only works halfway. This didn't work: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=865971 Following those instructions did nothing for me, despite everyone's success. However, I'm not surprised as not all devices behave alike. With the install of the madwifi drivers, nothing happened. My NIC still wasn't being picked up by the network manager. Second method I found involved the mac atheros drivers compiled into a debian package. Link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...62&postcount=3 This method got ubuntu to realize my wlan NIC exists. The button is blue up top as if everything is honkey dory. Just one problem, though. It can't pick up any wireless networks, it's borked. I tried through the GUI and through "sudo iwlist scan." Nada. When I try to connect to my wireless network manually with the correct settings, it just hangs. One last thing, too. I haven't investigated much into it yet, but, the sound is scratchy and intolerable. My chipset is nForce, not sure which revision. That's where I am, now. If anyone has had any similar issues or experiences, or if anyone has found some solutions, please share them here. I would definitely appreciate it. :)

10-08-2008, 09:18 AM	#2 (permalink)
Issac Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: CT Posts: 21 OS: Vista Ultimate/Basic SP1 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 I was able to find out more specific chipset information. nForce MCP77MV is the northbridge. There really isn't a lot of information about this chipset, yet. I hear there's troubles with nForce chipsets on ubuntu in general. Any ideas?

10-08-2008, 06:21 PM	#3 (permalink)
wmorri Moderator/Fedora Amb. Join Date: May 2008 Location: /pm/etc Posts: 2,814 OS: Window 7/Fedora 10 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 Hi, Sorry to hear that you are having such problems with Ubuntu. You said that you went here. I am guessing that you used this guide, from the guides portion of the site. As for your wlan card. I have done a little searching for you and remembered the program Ndiswrapper. This is a program that allows you to install your windows wifi drivers on your linux machine. The easiest way to get Ndiswrapper is by following these steps: Click on System, then [Administrator[/b] Go down the list and choose Synaptic Package Manager. You will be asked to enter your Administrator Password so do that. Synaptic will open then click on the Search button. Enter in the search field Ndiswrapper. You will have three packages come up ndisgtk, ndiswrapper-common, ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 choose mark for installation, then install them. That should help you with getting your wifi to start to work, if not get rid of your wifi problems. Cheers! __________________ Linux Forever! Last edited by wmorri; 10-08-2008 at 06:23 PM. Reason: finishing the list

10-09-2008, 01:53 AM	#4 (permalink)
Issac Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: CT Posts: 21 OS: Vista Ultimate/Basic SP1 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 A quick correction on my first post, it won't let me edit it for some silly reason. http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...62&postcount=3 That's regarding the mac wlan drivers that worked halfway. Thanks for the reply, wmorri. I gave ndiswrapper an honest shot, using the original driver from HP for my wireless card. Source: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...747533&lang=en It's further down the page; Atheros Wireless LAN Driver 06-2008 2.00 B » Version: 20.64M I extracted the package w/ cabextract: Code: athrext.cat athrx.sys data2.cab netathr.inf setup.exe setup.iss athrextx.cat data1.cab ISSetup.dll netathrx.inf setup.ini SP39403.cva athr.sys data1.hdr layout.bin _Setup.dll setup.inx I got these two files for use: netathr.inf athr.sys ndiswrapper gladly took these and convincingly said, "Okay, sir! You're good to go!" ... :( Restart the system, no go. Next I try: sudo gedit /etc/modules added "ndiswrapper" on its own line. I assume this is somewhat similar to Run in the registry or somesuch. Restarted the system, nada. sudo modprobe ndiswrapper doesn't show or tell me anything. "ndiswrapper -l" returns: Code: netathr : driver installed device (168C:002A) present Yet iwconfig only returns lo and eth0. sudo ndiswrapper -m: Code: module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive module configuration already contains alias directive Last edited by Issac; 10-09-2008 at 02:13 AM.

10-09-2008, 07:05 AM	#5 (permalink)
wmorri Moderator/Fedora Amb. Join Date: May 2008 Location: /pm/etc Posts: 2,814 OS: Window 7/Fedora 10 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 Hi, Sorry that this didn't work the first time. Can you please type: Code: lspci into terminal and then post the output. Cheers! __________________ Linux Forever!

10-09-2008, 08:54 AM	#7 (permalink)
wmorri Moderator/Fedora Amb. Join Date: May 2008 Location: /pm/etc Posts: 2,814 OS: Window 7/Fedora 10 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 Hi, Thanks for posting that. It did help me a bit. I would like you to follow Section 3.5 and 3.6 from start to finish from this document. Follow each step as written. If you come up with any error messages post them up here and I will help you work through them. Cheers! __________________ Linux Forever! Last edited by wmorri; 10-09-2008 at 08:55 AM.

10-09-2008, 04:50 PM	#10 (permalink)
Issac Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: CT Posts: 21 OS: Vista Ultimate/Basic SP1 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 Being connected with a NIC (eth0) would prevent ubuntu from seeing my wlan NIC? For real? That seems kinda silly. I'll try booting without a wired connection now and get back to you regarding that, thanks! Update; I booted up into ubuntu with no network cable connected. Still didn't pick up on the wlan NIC, though. Code: issac@izzylap:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1d:72:70:89:0d UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:221 Base address:0x4000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:1246 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1246 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:62300 (60.8 KB) TX bytes:62300 (60.8 KB) issac@izzylap:~$ Seems it still won't work, and I'm totally lost. Haha. I don't know how the link works between the driver and the listing in ifconfig. Last edited by Issac; 10-09-2008 at 05:02 PM.

10-10-2008, 05:54 AM	#11 (permalink)
wmorri Moderator/Fedora Amb. Join Date: May 2008 Location: /pm/etc Posts: 2,814 OS: Window 7/Fedora 10 My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 I have sent a pm to one of the other members here, I think that they have some more experience than I do with this issue. It should only be a day or so for them to look at the thread and have some ideas. Cheers! __________________ Linux Forever!

10-12-2008, 01:04 PM	#12 (permalink)
shuuhen Manager Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Colorado Posts: 981 OS: Mac OS 9.1, Mac OS X 10.5.8, WinXP Pro, FreeBSD 6.0, Gentoo Linux My System	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 To be sure I understand the current state of things: Video system works, but wireless doesn't? Fortunately Atheros has historically been one of the better chipsets to have, due to the madwifi drivers. There are some newer Atheros chips that I think require one of a couple newer drivers (all open source). Some information from your machine that will help is the output from these commands Code: ifconfig -a lsmod uname -r ifconfig -a lists all interfaces, even non-configured ones. lsmod lists kernel modules currently loaded. uname -r lists what kernel you are running, which is important in the case you need to install binary modules from an Ubuntu package repository. You don't need to worry about having a cable plugged in while figuring out wireless. It might stop your computer from using the wireless interface, but it would still show up. If you wanted to force your computer to use the wireless interface, you would need to change the routing tables with the route program. Don't worry about that for now, but if you want/need to do that we'll help. I'll need a little time to figure out what driver you should be using (and maybe how to install it), but it should be either madwifi, ath5k or ath9k. All of them are Linux drivers, which means they should work better than a Windows driver and ndiswrapper. From a quick look at the HP site for your driver, I think you'll need the ath9k driver since your device appears to be a 802.11n (pre-N) device. __________________ Has it been a few days since I replied to your thread? Don't panic! I'm a busy college student and may forget a post if I'm extra busy (or it might just take me a while to be able to do a decent reply). If you still need help and are awaiting my reply after a few days, PM me about it. When posting what errors you get, please give the full message. It makes helping you much easier.

02-13-2009, 09:09 PM	#13 (permalink)
jontn_swift Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1 OS: linux ubuntu 8.04	Re: Misadventures of the Compaq CQ50Z and Ubuntu 8.04 I just got a CQ50Z also and haven't yet installed Linux on it as I needed to have it working full boat, and I just can't leave Vista on it. I shrank the Vista Partition and put XP on one half of it. Next I intend to blow away Vista, and slice that partition up for Ubuntu. Anyway, everything I was reading about the laptop said it had an Atheros AR5009 WLAN chip, but when I googled the device ID, everything pointed to Broadcom chips. As it turned out, that's what I have. Once I installed the Broadcom driver wireless came on and just worked. Now that I know that I suspect that getting it working in Linux may be better than I thought it was going to be.