Never mind. I'll just quit posting in forums as much. There really is something(s) wrong with me, though I never figured out exactly what. Please resist the temptation to further torture me by telling me the ten thousand answers.

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Bendib... I came on here to get help with a problem, not to be insulted by a***holes like you. You call me a name clearly meant as an insult and then say 'it's not a bad thing'? Alright then. And btw, I took the others advice and I have spent all day on here, and dya know what, I love it! It's a million times better than windows! I am only having one problem and that is the wireless, I have spent the last three days trying to figure it, I have been on dozens of websites and forums and I am now pretty sure it's not actually anything I am doing. I can deal with constructive criticism fine but nothing about that was constructive, like I said, I came on here for help, not to be told not to be bother with linux because I am too stupid. Yeah you might be great with computers, and there will be a lot of things I am better at than you (interacting with other people maybe?) but so what? So if you have no interest in helping me, get off MY thread!

And thankyou very much to the people that are helping me I really appreciate it.

I know there have been many posts since the above one, I'll just quickly jump in and add that looking at my notes I can confirm I had the same chip on my old laptop (4312). Admittedly, most of the times (centos/debian/fedora/slackware) I had to resort to ndiswrapper to get it up and running, however, I remember that when I tried to install ubuntu on the laptop, it did pick it up automatically and installed restricted drivers (As far as I remember it was ubuntu 9.04 (or 8.10)). I didn't have to do anything to make it work.

Here's the link to another thread on LQ where I posted step-by-step instructions on how I did it via ndiswrapper. Ndiswrapper should be your last resort, but if you can't get it working any other way..., it's better than nothing. If you decide to try it, please note that the last step might be fedora/centos specific.

It wasn't intended as an insult. Obviously I should unsubscribe from this thread now, and obviously you don't have the same definition of noob that I do. I apologize for offending you. I probably am an a**hole. The rest of the world seems to think so. Goodbye.

It's a help forum, you should only come on to help. So yes you should leave.

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OK, everyone: STOP...NOW

If everyone plays nice from now on, and not fan the embers so to speak, I'll not close the thread, OK?

But I didn't get to call anyone anything! <always misses all the fun>

Once it is set up and running, Linux is easier than Windows.

There's software to do pretty much all the stuff you can do in Windows, and the job of securing the system and keeping it from becoming corrupted with malware is far simpler in Linux than in Windows.

Further, should something go wrong with a Linux installation, it can be fixed. When something goes wrong with Windows, if a wizard doesn't handle it you're pretty much forced to reload.

Installing Linux, now, can occasionally be a real challenge. But then, installing Windows can also be a real challenge.

My notes say that several years ago I successfully got a Broadcom wireless working on an Ubuntu laptop, but I guess I used ndiswrapper.

I have avoided broadcom since; it has always been problematic to get one of them working.

I wonder if Mandriva supports broadcom? Though I also agree that switching distros at this point is probably sub-optimum.

I did find this:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wir...tu-9-10-a.html

Though that is a Broadcom 4312 driver.

I have often found that Ubuntu loads incorrect wireless drivers. Last time I had problems with wireless, I solved 'em by blacklisting a certain driver.

edit:

Here is another thread that talks about blacklisting the b43 driver:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/man...iron-wifi.html

I will bet that this is the solution. Get rid of the b43 driver and the ssb driver and the wl driver.

I don't know why I am back. Anyway, you could always recompile the kernel with support I guess. I often find drivers that I need are included in the vanilla kernel, just not set to be used. Install gcc and if Ubuntu does not already have it, make, download the latest kernel from kernel.org, extract the folder, and if you are forgiving, I will help you select the driver if it exists and then compile it. Also, NDISWRAPPER could also be the answer if you can find a windows driver.

bendib;
I'm pretty sure you do not have to re-compile the kernel to get a wireless card working.....do you have any references where someone has had to do this?

I have the 4306 card and "sudo aptitude install b43-fwcutter" works without any problems for me. No need to recompile or to use Ndiswrapper.