How do i get my wireless to work on a dell inspiron 6000?

Question

When I installed ubuntu, everything was working perfectly except for the wireless networks. When i click on networks wireless is not an option. I know my wireless works because it worked fine before on fedora and windows. Can anyone help me?

Solution

1. Open Update Manager
2. Open Settings
3. Go the the Additional drivers tab.
4. Check if a Broadcom proprietary driver is offered. Install it.
5. Reboot.

If that doesn't work, try following these instructions.

In short:

1. Identify your card by typing in a terminal lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4
2. Check which driver is suitable for you from this list
3. In your case (BCM4318) you need the b43 driver
4. Open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and run sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
5. Reboot.

Comments

[thorstorm]

Start by typeing lspci | grep Ethernet and edit your question with the results. If this command gives no results try a plain lspci and locate the wifi adapter model.

[Joel Hunt]

Here are the results "03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)"

[thorstorm]

That's the cable network connection not the wifi. Try lspci again and fetch the wireless card type.

[Joel Hunt]

Is this it? "03:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)"

[Joel Hunt]

It will not let me apply the changes do i have to be logged in as root?

[Joel Hunt]

It did not ask me. However it did show one driver which is identified as Unkonwn with do not use checked and when i check Continue using as a manuel driver (the only avalible option that is clickable) it higlights red.

[thorstorm]

I would try the instructions in the link in my answer above installing the b43 driver.

[thorstorm]

I'm glad it did. Please mark it as the correct answer for the benefit of other users having the same problem.