I am new to Linux. I've spent more than a week trying to resolve my wifi problems before posting here, so thank you for taking a look.
I am running Mint 14 Cinnamon on a HP dv9320us laptop. Its harddrive is dead and I am using Mint on a live USB. I have spent most of my time trying to get the onboard Broadcom wireless adapter working. It is a problematic issue and I have done everything I can find suggested with b43 drivers, but no luck. So I have picked up a Netgear N150 adapter (WNA1000M) as an alternative, but no luck there either. I would like to work on the Netgear.
I have a Dell desktop with Windows 7. When I boot that machine with my Mint live USB, Mint does not see the Netgear adapter either, but it does pick up an Atheros adapter installed in it (curiously, Windows does not see the Atheros, which is why I have the Netgear.) Unfortunately I cannot use the Atheros adapter in the laptop as it is a PCI card installation.
As Clem directs, here is my mintWifi output: Again, this is being posted from the desktop computer. It is using the Atheros card to connect to wifi, but the Netgear adapter is physically installed as well. I ran it on the desktop because the terminal command would hang when querying Google.
Thanks again for taking a look.
mint@mint ~ $ sudo /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/mintWifi.py
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* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
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* II. querying ndiswrapper...
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* III. querying iwconfig...
wlan3 unassociated Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"belkin54g"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:11:50:3B:AB:AB
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=42/70 Signal level=-68 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:2 Invalid misc:223 Missed beacon:0
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:25:64:f2:62:79
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
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:175 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:175 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:17156 (17.1 KB) TX bytes:17156 (17.1 KB)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:13:46:75:27:09
inet addr:192.168.2.3 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::213:46ff:fe75:2709/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:44249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:23740 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:62207978 (62.2 MB) TX bytes:2349179 (2.3 MB)
wlan3 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:d1:68
da UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service smbd reload
Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the reload(8) utility, e.g. reload smbd
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 192.168.2.1
Address: 192.168.2.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.69
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.65
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.64
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.68
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.66
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.71
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.78
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.72
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.67
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.70
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.73
mint@mint ~ $