I have a Dell Inspiron 17 and I installed Ubuntu yesterday (I was originally on Windows 8). When I logged in, there were no Wi-Fi connections at all.
I've tried everything and I can't seem to find a solution.
I have a Dell Inspiron 17, and I had the same problem. It is due to the fact that the machine uses a wifi card that requires a proprietary driver. It is easy to fix. First, you will need to connect your machine to your internet router by a cable. Then in a terminal window, enter the command
sudo software-properties-gtk
In the window that appears, select the "Additional Drivers" tab. The screen shows "Searching for available drivers ...". After a minute or so, you should see your wifi card listed, with two options, like this:
Choose the first option, and click Apply Changes.
You will then just need to press F2 to enable (unlock) the wifi card, and then it should all work. When you click on the wifi icon in the toolbar, you should see a list of available networks. Select yours, and enter its password when prompted. You can then disconnect your cable from the router.
Please insert the command
sudo lshw -c network
If your network device is the BCM43___ then follow the thread:
It might contain something useful to you, I have the same problem but with the Bluetooth functionality of B43___ board.
For the Dell Inspiron 17 1750 I also spent a few hours trying to get the Wi-Fi card to work. Initially I just tried the first n
solutions I could find on various fora, however doing so, I had done some softwarematic damage I was not aware of. (I think I disabled the Wi-Fi driver in some way by adding it to a blacklist). That meant that the actual solution also didn't work anymore.
After a few months I did a clean install of Ubuntu (20.04) and pursued the following steps:
b43
firmware-b43-installer
. This prompted me if I also wanted to install the b43-fwcutter
which I did.So in essence, the most basic steps worked, but only after a clean install. (Note that the Synaptic Package Manger is not actually needed, you can also just install the firmware-b43-installer
and b43-fwcutter
from terminal, but given the amount of erroneous commands I had given, and the accompanying hassle that that brought, I picked the safer manual option).
lspci
?