[ubuntu-uk] Installing a wireless driver on a machine converted to Ubuntu from Windows

[Rowan Berkeley]

On 28/01/13 20:31, Robert McWilliam wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013, at 08:05 PM, Rowan Berkeley wrote:
>> If I might return to this issue I have with activating wireless on 
>> the Compaq, I believe I have located the correct network driver and 
>> installed it, but I'm still seeing no wireless option beneath the fan 
>> symbol in the notifications bar. What I need to do is investigate 
>> from the terminal, check that the driver is present, attempt to 
>> activate it, and identify any rival, dysfunctional drivers that may 
>> be there unknown to me and still need blacklisting. If anyone feels 
>> like walking me through the code for all this, I hall be much obliged.
> You can tell what driver is in use for the network card with lshw: 
> `sudo lshw -C network` will give a listing of all the network cards in 
> your system. In the configuration line for each one there will be an 
> entry "driver=something".
> Robert
The first major entry is what I assume is a normal report for Ethernet 
interface Realtek so-and-so, with a configuration entry that includes 
driver=something, but the second major entry after this first one is 
UNCLAIMED, Network controller Ralink so-and-so with a configuration 
entry that just says latency=0. As for the other qualities listed, 
comparing them, the Ethernet controller has entries for logical name, 
serial, size and capacity and the Network controller is missing these. 
Also, under capabilities, they both begin "pm msi pciexpress msix vpd 
bus_master_cap_list", but the Ethernet controller goes on "ethernet 
physical tp mii 10bt 10bt -fd 100bt 100bt -fd  autonegotiation" whereas 
the Network controller does not. Width for the Ethernet controller is 
given as 64 bits, and width for the Network controller as 32 bits. Under 
resources, the Ethernet controller lists "trq:41 ioport:2000(size=256) 
memory 7f004000-7f004fff memory 7f000000-7f003ff", whereas the Network 
controller just says "memory 90110000-9011ffff. So "trq" and "ioport" 
are missing. I unplugged the Ethernet cable before starting the machine, 
but if I do the whole thing with the cable plugged in, so that the 
Ethernet interface is active, the latter gets a longer configuration 
entry from "autonegotiation" onwards, but the rest is unchanged for 
both. It would be nice to know whether the Network controller driver I 
think I installed is actually there or not, but I can't tell from this. 
So, if you please, what should I do next?