Sampbar

Broadcom BCM4318 - Ubuntu Intrepid

2008-11-05T18:07:00.012Z

As many of you know and have seen from my little count down to the right hand side of this site Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 - the latest version of the user friendly linux distribution has been launched.

Now wireless support has improved greatly over the past few years with more and more native drivers emerging and new work arounds cropping up every day but I have always had a problem with my Broadcom BCM4318 in my HP Pavilion Zv6000. So fingers crossed I installed the new version of Ubuntu and booted up, no suprise it didn't work!

Now I could have downloaded numerous files and used the new Bcm43xx drivers which I believe have been kind of reverse engineered but i've tried that before and its more of a pain that it is worth. So I am going to explain clearly with step by step instruction how I personally have got my wireless inbuilt card working!

File Link: http://fluzzed.com/index/BCM4318-Ubuntu-Intrepid.zip

Step 1.
After you have installed Intrepid and booted up Re-insert the installation disk, wait for the icon to display on the desktop then double click the icon.

Step 2.
Navigate to the folder "pool" -> "main" -> "n" -> "ndiswrapper"
and then first install ndiswrapper-common then ndiswrapper-utils.

Step 3.
Now open a terminal and enter the following commands or run step3.sh which can be located in the zipped folder linked near the top of the post:
echo -e 'blacklist bcm43xx\nblacklist wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
mkdir ~/bcm43xx; cd ~/bcm43xx

Step 4.
Now you need to find the .inf file from your wireless driver, I have included the file which came with my cd in the zipped file which is linked towards the top of this post this file personally worked with my laptop and wireless card. Move this to your desktop, my file is named bcmwl5a.inf

Step 5.
Now open a terminal and enter these commands or use the step5.sh file I have provided in the zipped file at the top:
sudo cd ~/Desktop
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -l
sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.orig
echo -e 'auto lo\niface lo inet loopback\n' | sudo tee /etc/network/interfaces
sudo ndiswrapper -m
echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
echo 'ENABLED=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/default/wpasupplicant

Step 6.
Now I have included a wifi.sh file in the zipped folder near the top. You need to put this file in "/etc/init.d/" then type these commands in a terminal:
sudo cd /etc/init.d/
sudo update-rc.d wifi.sh defaults
sudo chmod +x wifi.sh

This ensures the wifi starts on bootup!

Step 7.
Now enter your wireless network details in the network manager and reboot, hopefully it should all be working now!

If you encounter any problems please feel free to leave a comment!

Kitting your new system out!

2008-09-13T11:36:00.009+01:00

So you've got your brand new PC home (a new Medion Akoya Mini in my case), unpacked it and gone through the tedious setup process. Now what?

Oh Yeah! there's that thing called software!

There is now so much good quality open source and free software on the web that there is absolutely no reason to buy commercial equivalents. So where do you find all this stuff?

Well there are three very good websites you can visit depending on what operating system you are using:

No.1 Microsoft Windows (Vista, XP, 2000, 98, 95)
Unfortunately this is probably going to be what most of you use -
http://www.opensourcewindows.org

No.2 Mac OS
This is going to be the second most likely operating system -
http://www.opensourcemac.org

No.3 Linux (Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, Debian, Mandriva etc.)
http://www.opensourcelinux.org

I happen to use all three operating systems so I try to keep the same software on each for familiarity.

Two other pieces of open source software you may be interested in which aren't mentioned on those sites are:

Songbird (Media Player)
It's still in beta but is very stable on all systems.
http://www.getsongbird.com

IBM Lotus Symphony (Office Suite)
It's a lot more polished than Open Office!
http://symphony.lotus.com

I hope this helps some people out, if anybody has any more suggestions for things I missed please feel free to email me at: samuelbarrett@sampbar.com

La Fonera

2008-08-07T14:11:00.005+01:00

The discounted La Fonera Routers are still available!

The discounted cost for the La Fonera+ is $/€19.95 (Shipping NOT included) to request a discount voucher please fill out the form below.

Unfortunately due to a very poor deal made by Fon and BT the discount is no longer available in the UK :( Please see the form below for all the other Countries it is available in.

Snap, Crackle and Pop!

2008-08-06T18:15:00.003+01:00

Church B&W
Originally uploaded by Samuel Barrett

I think this is quite possibly one of my best photos ever! My canvases from Outlook Images arrived today they look amazing with great print quality, well done guys!!

Feel free to head over to my flickr and have a look at the rest of my photos - http://flickr.com/sampbar

Im Going Square Eye'd

2008-08-05T17:00:00.004+01:00

I seem to be watching more and more television at the moment. There's so much good stuff around rather than the reality tv rubbish, if you look hard enough through the sky planner or in reduced sections in supermarkets. I recently found a really good American series called Jericho after watching all of The West Wing episodes I was feeling a couple of American Drama withdrawal symptoms so finding Jericho really helped. The series follows the survival of a small town in America after a series of nuclear explosions wipe out many of the major cities, the town must survive the nuclear fallout while facing challenges and mystery's such as how a newcomer to the town can know so much about nuclear events.

If action dramas aren't your thing you could always rush out and buy August Rush (sorry about the poor pun). The film starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers follows a young "parentless" boy who has an extreme talent for music even-though he has never played an instrument in his life. Does the boy find his parents? Is his talent ever discovered? Don't look at me i'm not going to tell you! Buy it and find out :)

Moved from old blog: Taking apart my Belkin Wireless G Router (F5D7230-4)

2008-08-04T18:40:00.000+01:00

Well now i have managed to take apart my old belkin router and have found out the source of my problem (bad power connection) so i can now fix that, also while i have it open i did a bit of research about the circuit board only to find out that it isn't a broadcom chipset so i can't load DD-WRT on to it :( But for those of you who are interested i am about to explain how to take this router apart...

Step 1.

Heat up the label underneath the router with a hair dryer until it is hot enough to peel off the sticker to reveal two screws (may be positioned differently from my picture but does not make a difference) then unscrew them.

Step 2.

There are two clips positioned on each side of the top cover which need to be unclipped before the top cover will come off. This part is the most difficult and will need a bit of force and a pen knife (small, use the blunt screw driver head/ file - but make sure you don't file away the plastic). Start at the back (i started on the right hand corner) and unclip them one at a time.

Step 3.

Right... you should now have the top cover off:

Step 4.

Finally if you would like to remove the circuit board you can remove the one screw which holds the circuit board down (may very from version to version but should be obvious)

Just Moving To Blogger!

2008-08-04T17:37:00.000+01:00

Right, im just moving over to blogger in an attempt to become more organised with less fuss. Things should be back to normal within a couple of days!

Samuel