Setting Up Wireless

Much development work has gone on to ease the problems of wireless adapters and the fact that few manufacturers provide Linux drivers.  The latest versions have seen considerable improvements in wireless support.  

Wireless adapters seem to be anything from directly supported in Ubuntu and easy to set up (same as in Windows) to well-nigh impossible!  These can be divided into sections :-

Easy setup in the GUI

Using Network Manager

    This applies to versions 8.04.1 (hardy Heron) and 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).

        (Description and screenshots to be added here)








Using the older method (earlier versions)

    Go to menu System > Administration > Network and after entering your password,  the Network Settings dialog will appear.  It opens showing the Connections tab giving a list of networking devices found.  One of these should be Wireless connection.  If no wireless connection appears your wifi adapter has not been detected and further steps will be needed.  These will be discussed later.

     Click on the Wireless connection then Properties.  In the Properties dialog uncheck Enable roaming mode and the previously greyed out settings become available.  In Network name (ESSID) enter the name you chose for your wireless network (SSID).  If you have set up WEP encryption enter your code in Network password and the type above. Next Connection settings - this depends on how you've set up you wireless network.  The default is usually to let the router allocate IP addresses for the local network.  In this case set the Configuration to Automatic configuration (DHCP) and leave the other boxes blank.  If you've setup individual fixed IPs for each computer then enter this info into the boxes.  This is much the same as in Windows.  Click OK when finished - a pop-up message will say the network is being configured.  This will take a minute or two.

    Check that the checkbox is ticked to enable the Wireless connection.  Uncheck the Wired connection to disable this network connection and allow the network connection to use wireless rather than wired.  Wireless networking should now work but you may need to reboot (possibly twice) to get the wireless connection working.

    If wireless networking doesn't work after this setting up (best to carefully check you entries) more complicated actions may be needed.  One thing to check first if you are using WEP is to try entering the full hexadecimal code rather than the ASCII password.

Wireless networking won't work after setting up as above

We now come to the "Fixes" :-

Needing proprietary firmware installed

  1. With Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers (Earlier versions used the name Restricted Drivers Manager ).  You will be asked for your password then taken to the Hardware Drivers dialog where you may find your wireless adapter listed - not Enabled and Not in use.  If your hardware isn't listed skip this section.
  2. Click the Enabled check box.  A window will pop up asking "Enable the firmware?".  
  3. Click Enable firmware.  Downloading and Installing software will appear and when finished will show Changes applied.  Click Close.  
  4. A box asking Specify firmware location appears.  Choose Download from internet (or if you already have the firmware, you can use the other option)  
  5. Click OK.  The firmware is downloaded and we are returned to the Restricted Drivers box with the firmware Enabled and In use.  Click Close.  
  6. You should now be able to setup wireless as normal - see above.
  7. Restart and wireless should be working.

Download and install an updated/replacement driver 

Firstly it's worth seeing if you can find an updated Linux driver package for your particular wireless adapter.  This may be available in a .deb file which can be installed simply by double-clicking on the downloaded file and following the prompts.

If you do not have a wired internet connection you will have to use either another computer or Windows on the one you want to use for Ubuntu.  A USB memory stick is very useful here - you can put the downloaded file onto that and easily access it from Ubuntu.

There is help available from the Ubuntu Community see :- Ubuntu Community Support for Wireless Network cards

Once you have the driver package installed the procedure is as for a directly supported wireless adapter (see above).  However, if you can't find any info on your adapter or there isn't a driver for it try Using the Windows driver and ndiswrapper  or see the Ubuntu Forums for more help.

Ralink rt2500 and rt73 (and some other chipsets) with serialmonkey driver - Gutsy Gibbon

With Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) and after, the serialmonkey drivers have been included in the distro and generally the Ralink drivers work fine.

With Gutsy the driver included doesn't seem to work. I finally got this working by downloading a tarball, unpacking it and compiling and installing the driver (using instructions provided). See rt2x00 Project Main Page (I found the regular RT2500 driver wouldn't compile but the CVS hourly tarball: rt2500-CVS worked fine using the supplied instructions (README) except that make install had to be sudo make install.)

However,  that was not quite enough to get it working - it needs the following entered in the command line :-
sudo ifdown wlan0
sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 11 essid <essid> mode Managed
sudo ifup wlan0
(where <essid> is the network ESSID.  Change the channel number if you are not using channel 11.)
(With Feisty the supplied driver worked using the code above to set up the essid - except that wlan0 is ra0.)

The rt2x00 Project also works for the RT73 chipset used in the Belkin USB wireless adapter F5D7050 ver. 3001uk using the rt73 tarball as above.  This driver needs sudo ifup wlan0 at bootup.

Several other chipsets are also supported in the rt2x00 project.

If the above is unsuccessful try Using the Windows driver and ndiswrapper  or see the Ubuntu Forums for more help.

More content will be added as the information becomes available...

Updated 4 November 2008