Without using Google or books, I tinker around the Ubuntu desktop. Thankfully, the mouse and keyboard are working, so those drivers aren't needed!
An icon with a wrench and a gear tell me this might be useful, so I give it a click. Hey! This looks like the Windows Control Panel! I can do this!
I look at the time and date. The time zone was right, the date was right, but the time was not. :-) This was due to no internet. I still need to install drivers!
I move on to click Details. Ahh...this is where I can set some defaults, but it doesn't show my hardware information so back to All Settings. Nope, nothing else there to install new hardware (or existing for that matter).
The Ubuntu logo button, again, much like Windows, allows me to type in a search. I type "hardware" and I get nothing. Alright, then it's time for Google on my Windows machine to get me going. I'm anticipating that I simply need to download the drivers, put them onto my handy thumb drive, and install away, but I don't know what else Ubuntu hasn't installed by default, so I'm going to Google for "Ubuntu Device Manager" and see what I get.
That took me to "askubuntu.com" which told me to go into the Ubuntu Software Center and search to install "System Profiler and Benchmark", however, I still don't have wireless and internet, so I have get a little more specific. Google "install Ubuntu drivers" and it's still a little to general, so "Dell studio 1537 Ubuntu drivers" should do the trick. Yup! I get pointed to a forum where someone has provided a link. Lo and behold, the only driver listed is for wireless. Let's see if it works!
The 1.1MB file is copied to my thumb drive, then copied from the thumb drive to the laptop. Hmmm...ok...not like Windows. No .exe file. OK...Google "install Ubuntu wireless driver without internet". I have to sift through a few pages and forums before I get to a site at help.ubuntu.com that helps you identify the device, get the driver, and install it. I learn I need to do this from the Terminal (CTRL + ALT + T). Ahhh...this looks like the Windows command prompt. I can do this!
I follow the guide. I have the BCM4312 802.11b/g wireless card. Cool...
I discover I need to learn a little about the command lines. I'm familiar with DOS and PowerShell, but not with Linux, so I need to learn how to change directories and find the files I just downloaded and extracted. :-)
Aha...while the command similar, it's case sensitive. cd /Downloads/drivers worked when cd /downloads/drivers did not (note the difference in "downloads"). Reading the notes for the driver, I need to make sure the right headers and tools are installed. Hmmmm...this is a bit more complicated than I'm ready for. But, being stubborn as I am, I dig deeper into how to do all of this without an internet connection yet (funny how we are immediately dependent on the internet even on a fresh OS install). Ahhhh...reading a little bit more in the readme file, Ubuntu should already have these files (pre-compiled driver) and I should not need to install these from the download.
But then I fell into a whirlpool of trying to figure out how to get the pre-compiled drivers installed. Well, I ended up finding a network cable and connecting to the internet that way. Many things started working, mostly the apt-get commands as they go directly through the internet to get the files/updates needed. *sigh*
I've made a mental note that learning to do an Ubuntu install completely offline should be one my goals as an administrator. If it can be done with Windows, it can be done with Linux and all of its variations. It's just a matter of how, finding the best practice, building it, then testing it....many, many times! :-)
Back to getting wireless working. Through my various Google searches, I find that others have struggled with this particular wireless card and its driver. But now that I've given myself internet access, things are moving along. Some of the prerequisites are now installing. I learned that I need to use "sudo" in most of my command lines so I don't get the "lock" error. All of this will make sense once I pause and review, then Google some more to understand exactly what I did. :-)
Once the prerequisites installed, the command in the readme file still didn't work, but I found another thread that since I had internet, I only needed to do an install-broadcom-kernel command and the files downloaded/installed automatically. Other updates were installing in the background, so I waited for that before rebooting to see if wireless was working. It didn't look like any other drivers needed to be added or updated at this point, but, I'm still just a beginner and may discover otherwise at a later time. The joy of being a computer geek!
After rebooting...wireless is working!!! One hurdle/learning experience down....countless to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment