Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E 130

[goeran]

downloaded 1: Wary 5.3, 2: Wary 5.5 ,3: Racy 5.5 and 4: Precise 571 isos to older computor with cddrive.
Burned the isos on four different cds. Booted the distro from cd on the older computor.
From within the distro I then installed on an usbdrive and tested one after the other.
The first three all booted ok, but could NOT find wlan.
Tried then Precise 5.7.1 , booted ok, and found the wlan.
Both Frisbee and Barrys simple tool worked hasslefree.
Goeran

[rcrsn51]

Your Thinkpad may have the troublesome Broadcom WiFi adapter and only Precise has a matching driver.

[Ibidem]

I presume from the title that the computer in question was a Thinkpad Edge E130?
If so, it probably has one of two wireless adapters: "Thinkpad bgn wireless", which at that time meant a rebranded RTL8192SE (requires kernel 3.x), or Intel wireless.
Type "lspci -nnk |grep -A 2 -i net" in a terminal on Precise to figure out which it is; if you can't tell, post the output.

[goeran]

thank you, tried the command "lspci -nnk |grep -A 2 -i net"
but no output.
Is Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 2230 for wlan or for a simcard ?

[ardvark]

thank you, tried the command "lspci -nnk |grep -A 2 -i net"
but no output.

Hi....

Just try posting from the shorter version...

Code: Select all

lspci -nnk

Regards...

[goeran]

thanks again, simple is good

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 [8086:0888] (rev c4)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 BGN [8086:4262]
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5116 PCI Express Card Reader [10ec:5209] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5008]
Kernel driver in use: rtsx_pci
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 07)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5008]
Kernel driver in use: r8169

[Ibidem]

thanks again, simple is good

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 [8086:0888] (rev c4)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 BGN [8086:4262]
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5116 PCI Express Card Reader [10ec:5209] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5008]
Kernel driver in use: rtsx_pci
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 07)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5008]
Kernel driver in use: r8169

So it's Intel wireless. My guess is that you need a newish kernel for iwlwifi to support the hardware; but if you want to poke around on older kernels, you might try

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grep iwlwifi /proc/modules
#if that shows nothing:
modprobe iwlwifi
dmesg |tail

While I was at university, a number of people encountered a bug with iwlwifi that meant wireless only worked if you unloaded and reloaded the driver:

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modprobe -r iwlwifi && modprobe iwlwifi