No Wireless with Dell Inspiron 1501

Question

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop and I just upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04. However, now my wireless card doesn't work whereas it worked just fine in 10.10 and 10.04. Any ideas? It works fine when I hardwire.

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! We need more hardware information to help you, can you look at this question and then edit your question adding the information? — Jorge Castro, Oct 17 '11 at 12:46

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 19 '11 at 00:53

9

This link just got my wireless working on a inspiron 1501

http://blog.tech4him.com/2011/09/broadcom-wireless-on-ubuntu-11-04-and-11-10/

Thanks to the author

He uses two commands

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

dunno what that does exactly I am also a newbie but I would rather be lucky than good !

edited Oct 19 '11 at 00:53

Jorge Castro

71,754

answered Oct 19 '11 at 00:13

Farmer

91

I can confirm that just installing firmware-b43-installer alone does the trick on Ubuntu 12.04. – ternaryOperator Apr 18 '12 at 15:27
Ubuntu 12.10 as well! – Peter Cassetta Nov 30 '12 at 08:18
The above worked for me on Peppermint 4.0. I rebooted after and presto, wireless working. – mungflesh Apr 14 '14 at 22:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 07 '12 at 11:56

There is a problem some users are having with the new version 12.04 telling them it is a proprietary driver and it will refuse to load it. However, I have worked around this. Use the cutter above if you feel it will work, however if it doesn't just copy all of the files for your card into a brand new directory I'll put the commands below.

sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/b43 
sudo cp /Directory_Where_Drivers_Are /lib/firmware/b43 
sudo gedit /etc/modules

In your text editor add the line b43 at the bottom, then save the file. Reboot your system and it will recognize your card and forget the warning.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 25 '12 at 18:10

1

Run these commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

THEN UNPLUG ETHERNET AND REBOOT

edited Nov 25 '12 at 18:10

Jorge Castro

71,754

answered Nov 25 '12 at 18:06

inspiron 1501 user

21

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 30 '11 at 00:01

open synaptic package manager, and install b43, do NOT install the driver from the Additional drivers. You'll need to start the wireless with Fn+F2 each boot, still looking for a solution for that issue. But that is the way I make my broadcom bcm4311 working in my Dell Inspiron 1501.

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 11 '12 at 15:33

0

What worked for me, was using these commands:

sudo modprobe -rv dell-laptop
sudo modprobe -v b43

Hope this helps.

edited Aug 11 '12 at 15:33

Peachy

7,117
10
38
46

answered Aug 11 '12 at 15:23

Daniel

1

Welcome to AskUbuntu! You may want to add more detail about what those commands do, to convince the original poster of the quality of your answer. – Oyibo Oct 03 '12 at 07:43

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 25 '11 at 09:19

it seems like you may need a non free wireless card driver. You may try the following: Connect to your ethernet , start the 'Additional drivers' program and search to find if it detects and non free drivers your wireless card. From the commnad line its

/usr/bin/jockey-gtk

Hope this helps.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 30 '11 at 18:38

0

I had the same problem with my Inspiron E1505 wireless card. What worked for me was I removed the driver using the Additional Drivers program and then installed the firmware-b43-installer package. Upon reboot the card worked beautifully

answered Apr 30 '11 at 18:38

Reuben Swartz

1,187

No Wireless with Dell Inspiron 1501

7 Answers7

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