Hi, I'm new to Linux and I've recently decided to install a Linux OS on my old laptop (Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000) instead of Windows 98.
antiX looked like a good choice, but I was unable to run the 7.5 liveCD (it returned several pages of"looking for cdrom in /dev/..." followed by"could not locate MEPIS filesystem, sorry" ).
So I tried the 8.0 test version, this time the installation went smoothly, but apparently my wireless card doesn't work...
I thought antiX included the"b43" driver and cards with the Broadcom 4318 chipset were supposed to work out of the box. Is that correct ? Maybe I should wait for the final release ?

I use the b43 driver but I'm not sure how it got here though. Originally it was the bcm43xx driver and whether it was through natural selection or due to the fact that I use sid repos It was updated some time ago. Either way one or the other should be available to you in antix. I have run antix on this laptop since version 7.0 and wireless has never been an issue.

Eriefisher :
Thanks for your answer. Are you sure it works even under 8.0 ? In this thread (
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/my-first-look-at-m8-t1212.html"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/my-first-lo ... t1212.html"
====================================
) you seemed to say that there was a problem. How did it work out in the end?

Hello Silence:

I'm running antix 8 public test 1 in an old Dell Inspiron 7500. I had similar problems as you, livecd did not pickup my linksys pcmcia wireless card, neither did the hard disk install. Ethernet worked fine.

Then I tried a distro upgrade and an a sidux conversion (using smxi) and then I was able to get the wireless card working. I used the mepis network assistant (first choice in Network tab in control center) and clicked on"enable b43...". Then wicd was able to pick up my wireless connection. It now works fine. I hope this helps.

I'm having other problems, such as the sidux kernel is installed, but grub did not see it and the"newest kernel" boot option gives me error messages.

Best of luck and welcome to Antix!

Pedro

You might need to use ndiswrapper.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/"
linktext was:"http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false ... diswrapper

Also this thread may help:

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6051&highlight=4318"
linktext was:"http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/showt ... light=4318"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

silence wrote:Eriefisher :
Thanks for your answer. Are you sure it works even under 8.0 ? In this thread (
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/my-first-look-at-m8-t1212.html"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/my-first-lo ... t1212.html"
====================================
) you seemed to say that there was a problem. How did it work out in the end?

I had forgot about that, your right. That was the first test release of 8 and only with the live cd. I have not tested it further and did not spend a lot of time on it then.

However, I'm sure there is a simple reason. It could be a conflict between ndiswrapper and the native driver or possibly the b43 driver is installed as well as built into the kernel now. I would have to check. I don't have a copy of the latest 8 yet so it may take some time for me to look. maybe anti could verify which driver/s are there by default.

Thanks to all for your help.

I think I shouldn't have to use ndiswrapper, my card works fine on Ubuntu 8.04 with the b43 driver and no ndiswrapper.
Apparently the card is recognized but there's no way to activate it. Maybe there's some kind of conflict...
In any case I can't acess the internet on my laptop until the wireless is up and running, so my options are a bit limited.

try and look with lsmod and see if the driver is loaded, if not modprobe b43 should load it.

I had a laptop with a broadcom chip in it about a year ago and no problems with it under mepis or antix. It had some problems under dreamlinux. I think it was solved by loading a different driver for it (I think they were using testing at the time). I searched in synaptic, but I couldn't find any .debs. Maybe try a different repo? Or google for a broadcom .deb? Maybe check at mepislovers?

john

Frankly, I'm a bit at a loss as to what I can do now.

Apparently there are 2 ways to go about it :

- if I choose"enable b43" in the network assistant:
lsmod shows b43 is loaded, ndiswrapper doesn't appear so there shouldn't be any conflict. My wireless card is detected as"wlan0", but disabled. I tried installing the latest wireless drivers (including b43) from linuxwireless.org, but no change.

-if I choose"enable ndiswrapper"
the wireless card isn't detected at all. b43 isn't loaded. If I type"ndiswrapper -l" it doesn't detect any hardware present.
I removed the bcmwl5 driver and replaced it with the driver from my install cd-rom. Now"ndiswrapper -l" returns"device present, alternate driver : ssb". However, the wlan0 interface is still not detected.

What do I do now ?? I'd rather not mess with the kernel...

Try using wicd or ceni to connect wireless.

wicd doesn't detect any network... But ceni worked ! I now have internet access on my laptop. Thanks !

Glad it worked, silence. __{{emoticon}}__

I'll write solved in the first post.