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From: Simon Brooke on 30 Jan 2010 06:58
I have a Dell Mini 9, bought from Dell with Ubuntu 8.04 pre-installed.
I've deliberately not messed about with it much, because I wanted it to
be reliable. Over Christmas I did a routine 'install updates', and since
then both the screen and the wireless networking have been broken.

lshw sees the Broadcom wireless card but describes it as unclaimed:

root(a)sambac:/var/log# lshw -C network
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: BCM4312 802.11b/g
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci(a)0000:03:00.0
version: 01
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0

This is despite the module (yes, I know it's proprietary, I don't care)
being loaded:

root(a)sambac:/var/log# modprobe -l | grep broadcom
/lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/kernel/drivers/net/phy/broadcom.ko

I can unload and reload the module, but it makes no difference:

root(a)sambac:/var/log# modprobe -rv broadcom
rmmod /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/kernel/drivers/net/phy/broadcom.ko
rmmod /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/kernel/drivers/net/phy/libphy.ko
root(a)sambac:/var/log# modprobe -v broadcom
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/kernel/drivers/net/phy/libphy.ko
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-lpia/kernel/drivers/net/phy/broadcom.ko

Nothing at all shows up in the syslog when I do this. ifconfig doesn't
see the interface at all:

root(a)sambac:/var/log# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:21:70:f6:6e:05
inet addr:192.168.0.6 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::221:70ff:fef6:6e05/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17099 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:11570 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:13208028 (12.5 MB) TX bytes:1502010 (1.4 MB)
Interrupt:220 Base address:0x8000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:21680 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:21680 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1084000 (1.0 MB) TX bytes:1084000 (1.0 MB)

Meantime the pretty point-and-drool user interface (System ->
Administration -> Hardware Drivers) shows 'Broadcom STA wireless driver'
as enabled but with status 'Not in use'. There's no pretty pointy clicky
thing that I can find which will change that from 'Not in use' to 'in
use'...

Unloading the proprietary 'broadcom' driver and loading the open source
'b43' one makes no difference. lshw still reports the device as
'UNCLAIMED', and it still does not work.

Any suggestions?

--

;; Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profundam variat

From: Andy Davison on 30 Jan 2010 10:29
On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:58:04 +0000, Simon Brooke wrote:

> Any suggestions?

Have you tried running UNR? My cousin has a Windows XP Dell Mini 9 which
has a terminal SSD problem and won't boot so I put UNR onto a USB key and
she now uses that. What surprised me was that the WiFi worked out of the
box as they say and I didn't have to install anything myself.
--
Andy Davison
andy [ at ] oiyou [ dot ] ukfsn [ dot ] org
From: Simon Brooke on 30 Jan 2010 12:03
On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:29:01 +0000, Andy Davison wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:58:04 +0000, Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> Any suggestions?
>
> Have you tried running UNR? My cousin has a Windows XP Dell Mini 9 which
> has a terminal SSD problem and won't boot so I put UNR onto a USB key
> and she now uses that. What surprised me was that the WiFi worked out of
> the box as they say and I didn't have to install anything myself.

H'mmm... Curse you, Red Baron.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix boot from USB key resulted in everything being
autodetected properly. screen resolution is fine, wireless network
detected and enabled. Presumably, if I put a standard Ubuntu 9.10 key in,
the same would happen. Time, I think, to back up my home directory and
reinstall.

In 8.04 I really disliked the Maximus 'every window takes over the whole
screen' thing, and quickly got rid of it. With Netbook Remix it seems it
may be more tolerable. I might give it a try.

--

;; Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profundam variat

From: Dave N on 30 Jan 2010 12:08
Andy Davison wrote, on 30/01/2010 15:29:
> On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:58:04 +0000, Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>> Any suggestions?
>
> Have you tried running UNR? My cousin has a Windows XP Dell Mini 9 which
> has a terminal SSD problem and won't boot so I put UNR onto a USB key and
> she now uses that. What surprised me was that the WiFi worked out of the
> box as they say and I didn't have to install anything myself.

This web site might prove useful to Simon:

<http://www.ubuntumini.com/>

I found the FAQs and Guides very informative, both for getting WiFi to
work seamlessly and also for avoiding the monitor configuration problem
mentioned in the other thread. I can only echo that when I tried
Jackalope (9.04) UNR on my Mini 9, it worked "out-of-the-box" for me as
well including the WiFi. There some additional wrinkles shown on that
web site such as getting the "aircraft mode switch" to work under later
Ubuntu (UNR) distributions.

Finally, there is a generic Dell Mini web site at:-

<http://www.mydellmini.com/>

--
Dave N
From: Tony Houghton on 30 Jan 2010 13:46
In <7sj73cF19lU1(a)mid.individual.net>,
Simon Brooke <stillyet+nntp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

> Ubuntu Netbook Remix boot from USB key resulted in everything being
> autodetected properly. screen resolution is fine, wireless network
> detected and enabled. Presumably, if I put a standard Ubuntu 9.10 key in,
> the same would happen. Time, I think, to back up my home directory and
> reinstall.

I think UNR also has some more battery-life-oriented power/performance
settings than standard Ubuntu, because the estimated battery life
reported by the battery applet on my Acer Aspire One went up quite a bit
when I changed over. It could be that switching from Mint 7 (based on
Ubuntu 9.04) was responsible. Or even that the battery reporting is a
not too accurate guess and it got more optimistic!

Strangely, the documentation for Ubuntu PPAs says the PPA server
automatically compiles packages for LPIA (Intel Atom) as well as
ordinary x86 and x86_64, but UNR doesn't seem to be available optimised
for LPIA.

BTW, Mint is very good on a netbook if you don't like the fullscreen
window thing in UNR and don't mind possibly losing a bit of battery
life, because its excellent menu takes up far less room on the panel
than the standard GNOME one, as well as generally being nicer to use. I
wonder why it hasn't been adopted as the official GNOME menu system for
all distros.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk
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