So I Lost My Ubuntu Wireless Connection

On February 27, 2009 · 3 Comments

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  That’s the reasoning behind my still still running Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) on my Dell Inspiron laptop.  Getting right down to it, I don’t seem to do a whole lot on my computers that requires locally installed programs, so being able to get on the net, post to the sites, and watch the occasional, downloaded episode of Top Gear is all I really need a computer to do these days.  If I really need to do something in Photoshop, I can do that on Vanessa’s desktop (which still runs XP, thank you very much). 

About three weeks ago, I grabbed the laptop to check out Twitter and post up an update over on Tarmac & Gravel only to discover that the Wifi light was out and I had no internet.  Oy!  Frustrating!  I did the usual things – reboot the computer, reconfigure the wireless connection, reboot the modem and router – but nothing seemed to work.  In an act of desperation, I stole the wired connection from the router and actually plugged in to the internet.  Can you believe that? To my dismay, there was still no internet on my laptop.

What followed next was several hours of research online from the desktop, chatting with Linux buddies online, trying this command in Terminal, trying that one, but still no dice.  We finally figured out that the firmware for the PCI device had gone missing.  How a computer which had been running without issue for nearly a year could just up and lose firmware was beyond me, but that’s what we concluded.  Even after finding the driver and ‘fwcutter’ program to make it work on Ubuntu, I still couldn’t get it to work.

It got to the point where I was thinking I would just replace the PCI device with one supported by Ubuntu, maybe even the latest stable distro of Ubuntu, and start all over.  I was pretty much done with it.  Having never opened a laptop up before, I began looking over the case to see if there was a panel I could remove to gain access to the card for replacement.  That’s when I saw the little switch with the image of the antenna next to it that was turned to the OFF position.

And now you know why the site has been dim for practically the entire month of February.  Because I am dumb.

In the glovebox:

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  • http://www.kavistechnology.com Mike Kavis

    Doh! That's the first thing that came to mind when I started reading the post. You know why? Because I did the same thing a while back. Although I never got to the point of thinking about replacing the card. This link has the fixes for some of the most common issues http://www.ubuntugeek.com/common-problems-and-s… Save it for later!

  • http://dr1665.com DR1665

    Thanks Mike. This is my first laptop, so I think I'm allowed a certain number of stupid mistakes. :P Now I need to find a battery. (Who woulda thought these things were so pricey?)

  • http://dr1665.com Brian Driggs

    Thanks Mike. This is my first laptop, so I think I'm allowed a certain number of stupid mistakes. :P Now I need to find a battery. (Who woulda thought these things were so pricey?)