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I have an old desktop - 7 years old - without a wifi card and without access to a physical internet connection. Instead of upgrading from 11.04 to 12.04, I had to do a fresh install of 12.04 due to some broken packages that I wasn't able to find. I have a wifi dongle, but it's for a Windows OS.

I have a netbook with a wifi card, so I've been able to download the deb packages and transfer them to the desktop. I've been installing the deb packages and supporting libraries for Wine one-by-one in the Terminal so that I can download the wifi driver and have internet on this desktop. Except that I'm unable to install the kmod deb. I get the message that doing so will break the module-init-tools, and that auto-deconfigure might help.

But I can't find anywhere how to uninstall module-init-tools, or overwrite them with kmod, or just break the packages, or how to use auto-deconfigure. Not in any fashion that I understand, anyway. I'm newbie to intermediate.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

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  • It would be very helpful if you were to provide the exact error messages you're encountering when installing Wine. Since you're bringing packages over, you should also be able to select all the text in the Terminal, copy it to the clipboard, paste it into a text file, bring the text file over to the Internet-connected computer, and edit your question to add it. (You should format it with the <$> tool in the Ask Ubuntu editing toolbar, so it appears correctly.) If you have an Ethernet cable and your netbook has an Ethernet port, you may simply be able to share its Internet connection.
    – Eliah Kagan
    Aug 5, 2012 at 2:42
  • I can type in the error message as where the issue is occurring is on a different machine without internet access. <$> sudo dpkg -i kmod_8-2_i386.deb dpkg: regarding kmod_8-2_i386.deb containing kmod: kmod breaks module-init-tools (<< 4) module-init-tools (version 3.16-1ubuntu2) is present and installed. dpkg: error processing kmod_8-2_i386.deb (--install): installing kmod would break module-init-tools, and deconfiguration is not permitted (--auto-deconfigure might help) Errors were encountered while processing: kmod_8-2_i386.deb
    – dagmar27
    Aug 5, 2012 at 17:17
  • I do not have an ethernet cable, but maybe I should go out and get one, huh?
    – dagmar27
    Aug 5, 2012 at 17:18
  • Are you having trouble using this method, specific to your situation to add the complete and exact text from the Terminal into your question? Since you can move .deb packages to the Internet-disconnected machine, you should also be able to move text tiles from the Internet-connected machine.
    – Eliah Kagan
    Aug 5, 2012 at 18:07
  • The exact text is above. <$> sudo dpkg -i kmod_8-2_i386.deb <$> dpkg: regarding kmod_8-2_i386.deb containing kmod: <$> kmod breaks module-init-tools (<< 4) <$> module-init-tools (version 3.16-1ubuntu2) is present and installed. <$> dpkg: error processing kmod_8-2_i386.deb (--install): <$> installing kmod would break module-init-tools, and deconfiguration is not permitted (--auto-deconfigure might help) <$> Errors were encountered while processing: kmod_8-2_i386.deb Also, the ethernet connection idea did not work. The netbook wanted to either connect to the wired or to the wifi connection
    – dagmar27
    Aug 5, 2012 at 19:28

2 Answers 2

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Synaptic and Muon usually resolve these kinds of issues automatically. I suggest using them to solve this problem if possible.

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  • As this is a fresh install of 12.04, and 12.04 doesn't include Synaptic, to install all of the libraries required in Terninal for either Synaptic or Muon would be very time consuming.
    – dagmar27
    Aug 5, 2012 at 17:20
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Wait, I think you are going way off into the woods here, are you trying to install Wine because you think that the drivers for your WiFi dongle require Windows?... if that is the case you are on the wrong track becuase Wine will only run application software not drivers, if there is definitely no driver for your USB dongle for Linux, you might use NDISWrapper but not Wine.

Firstly, what exactly is the dongle you are using? At a terminal, use "lsusb" and find paste the line including the hex device ID's... like this:-

Bus 002 Device 006: ID ab0d:4b05 Atheros Communications, Inc.

Then you can find out what is actually required to run this device on Ubuntu with Google.

If I am mistaken, and you just want to run a Windows application, I wonder why you are installing Wine, without getting your WiFi working?

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