Networking :: New to linux - wifi and or network problems

Hi,

I hope any of you can help me and maybe turn a lifelong windows user to linux

Im completly new to Linux but am not completly ignorant as far as tech issues are concerned but please treat me as a beginner.

I have a laptop (Dell Inspiron 6000) with a damaged hard drive. Damaged to the extent that i cant install a new OS on it.

Using DSL booting from a USB stick i am able to access most of the files on my hard drive and transfer them to USB for safe keeping.

What i cant do is access the internet. I have a Netgear router connected to the net so can connect the laptop to it via either wifi or ethernet.

Both the wlan config and network card config options in the control panel (not sure of its correct name) give the message no card discovered (or words to that effect).

I wondered if anyone could help and let me know where to start.

Unfortunately i dont know the chipsets in either of the network devices but being a Dell i would expect they would be reasonably common.

Thanks for any help in advance

Chris

Open up a terminal (Aterm is fine) and type

Quote

lspci

Look for "network" or "ethernet controller". Then you know the chipset. Does it say on boot anything about networking?
Like "interface eth0 found, broadcasting for ip (backgrounding)"

I think of four possibilities:
- net chip is off from BIOS
- this chip isn't supported in linux 2.4.26
- the chip needs a Win driver in ndiswrapper
- or this chip isn't supported in Linux at all.

Tell the chipset and we'll tell what we know..

It looks like the Inspiron 6000 has a Broadcom networking chip, and that the b44.o module might be what you are looking for.

The changelog mentions that DSL-3.3 fixes a b44.o problem with DSL-3.2, so check which version of DSL you are working with.

original here.