Linux Mint Forums

Hi All,

During the x-mas holidays I was asked to help my sister in law for help with her Laptop. It used to run Windows 7, but for some reason I've had to "restore" it a couple of times because of some kind of issues with the updates she recieved.
Trying to do so once again I got presented with a recovery image error - It just wouldn't restore properly, which in the end left me with a laptop that didn't want to boot at all.

This I saw as an oportunity, and told her that: "I'll just trow Linux onto it and all your problems will not only go away - chances are that you'll end up with a computer that runs smoother and faster than it did with Windows" I even threw in the posibility to actually put MS Office on it (with the help of playonlinux).

So - I installed LMDE, applied the update packs and installed all applications that I could think of (that she might be interested in using). All of this I did with a wired network connection. Everything went just fine.

I just missed one "tiny" thing:

I didn't make sure she had her wireless up'n'running before leaving Bilbao for my 600km trip home.
- just didn't cross my mind. (Silly me)

So my question is:

This is a regular user that's been with LM9 for a bit over a year on her netbook. Assuming that her not having a working wifi is not just about clicking on the network icon in the bottom right corner of her desktop and choosing "activate wireless" - what do I ask her to to enter in terminal to get the status of the wireless? (Hardware, if it's activated or not etc etc.) I'm quite sure I can get her to enter a few things and paste the output and send it to me by email so I can try and figure out the rest. I just need to know what to ask from her.

Would that be a dmesg and/or something else?

Thanks in advance,
/gosa

Ohh - in the event that someone happens to have the same laptop (or knows about them) - it's a Compaq 610

To find out the driver (module):
inxi -N
Mintwifi shows lots of useful information:
sudo mintwifi
To see interfaces:
sudo ifconfig
To display the parameters of the interfaces:
sudo iwconfig
To activate/deactivate WiFi interface:
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
To scan available access points:
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan