or in other words you get what you pay for. Since my beta for windows 7 was approaching the expiration date and I had no intention to go back to XP I decide to experiment once again with Linux on my lappie. So I download the latest distro of Ubuntu proceed to load the iso file on a virtual machine using Vmware and then write the ISO file to a USB stick to create a bootable thumb drive.
It would have been easier to burn the ISO to a CD and then boot off the CD but I had no blank CD lying with me. Also better would have been to use a utility to burn the ISO directly from windows to the thumb drive but I was not aware of such a utility and was in no mood to hunt for such a utility. Anyways I had a bootable thumb drive and I boot my computer into the USB and proceed to install it on my lappie. No issues till now. I had to create a separate partition to install the Linux.
So I gleefully proceed to boot into my Ubuntu and what do I see? My wireless device is not being recognized!
Dang! It was the same issue that I had experienced years ago. Broadcom wireless devices are scantily supported by ubuntu drivers. I had vague experience of solving this by using ndiswrapper so I blacklist the b43xxxx drives in the blacklist.conf file and then install the native windows drivers using ndiswrapper. No use :(
nm-tool gave state disconnected. lwsconfig gave no information about my device wlan0.
Should I give up and move back to windows? After zillion tries I peeped into the system logs using dmesg and sure enough there is a log asking me to download b43-fwcutter. So I go ahead and install it and I reboot. Bingo! It worked.
So for dell laptops with Broadcom wireless device install b43-fwcutter and install the native drivers. Now, plug & pray that your device would work.
more ubuntu pains in my next blog!
