Ethernet or Wireless! Why must I choose!

[titanicx]

Ok od story here, never had this happen before on a Linux install. Trying out LMDE on my work computer and on install the ethernet connection worked, however the wireless did not, not to unusual but surprising for a Mint install. So I looked around on the forums and tech notes since it kept telling me that plain old ndiswrapper was not working to install and activate the card (broadcom of course). Found a script on one of the community tutorials. http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/218 I ran the script from method 2. This worked like a charm to get my wireless working, However when i went to verify my wired connection, it is not available on my network manager! This is so far the most vital thing I need working. mostly due to the fact that here at work we have a tendency to drop wireless and have to run wired once in a while and the fact that a few of our network resources are not available on the wireless only the wired subnet. Any insight would be useful! I have included the LSPCI output for both devices. The machine itself is a dell vostro 1000. Also as a side note, my second monitor, before updates, ran at a 1384 x XXX resolution which was perfect for this monitor, now it will only allow at a 1024 x 768 resolution after the system ran updates. This would be nice to have back again, and It has been a while since I have had to hack a display file. Thanks for your help!


05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000b]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18
Region 0: Memory at c0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ndiswrapper

08:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:022a]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10
Region 0: Memory at c0300000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>

[AlbertP]

You have used ndiswrapper for the driver. The Broadcom STA driver may work better. Please remove the Broadcom driver from ndiswrapper, revert Method 2, and install the STA driver: http://wiki.debian.org/wl (please use the 'squeeze' installation steps).

[titanicx]

Ok I will try this, but was wondering why it did this in the first place. I have used ndiswrapper for years on many systems, including this one with Mint 9, and never had this issue. Since it has been so many years since I have used Debian, does Debian use the same driver for both the hard wire and wireless? Is it perhaps an issue with the script that i ran? Or is it one of the extra tools that was downloaded with the script that then over took the standard network manager?

[AlbertP]

You installed 2 drivers: Broadcom STA and ndiswrapper. You should have only 1 driver installed.

Generally Linux drivers work better than ndiswrapper. I just found out that Broadcom STA conflicts with the b44 driver for some Broadcom wired ethernet chips. With only ndiswrapper, and not the STA driver installed, both wireless and ethernet should work.

[TBABill]

Since part of the steps to install the STA on LMDE is to blacklist the b44 driver (which you need for your ethernet NIC) I'm wondering if it'd work fine by just removing the b44 blacklist item from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf ?

Edit: does the b44 also need ssb? If so, that'd need to be removed from blacklist as well.

[AlbertP]

b44 needs ssb.

wl and ssb conflict with each other; you can have only one of them loaded.
He already managed to get internet connection using ndiswrapper, and ndiswrapper doesn't conflict with ssb.

[titanicx]

Ok i'm a little confused. I haven't installed the STA driver yet (or so I thought). How can I verify if I have installed this?