Lost w-fi capability after transferring mint to old Presario - help

[keith]

Hi,
While I have been using Mint 17.1 successfully on my old Compaq Presario for a couple of years, the ease of the system has not forced me to move beyond the newbie stage. I never have to think about it.

But now, I have downloaded the same Mint program to an even older Compaq Presario which I had given to a friend and it had slowed to a crawl on windows seven. The download worked as expected and everything works amazingly well except it is missing it's w-fi capability. In the meantime I have hooked it up via Ethernet cable to a plug-in wi-fi range extender and it works just great but it would still be nice if I could get the w-fi going for my friend.

I saw one answer to this question in which an expert asked to see the the system picture from the terminal, so I followed the instructions and am copying the picture for the system on this computer. Can this help anyone help me get the wi-fi capability back? Thanks

System readout:

user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA Kernel: 4.4.0-131-generic i686 (32 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28) Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine: System: Hewlett-Packard product: Presario C500 (RZ343UA#ABA) v: F.24
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 30C6 v: 78.10
Bios: Hewlett-Packard v: F.24 date: 04/25/2007
CPU: Single core Intel Celeron M 440 (-UP-) cache: 1024 KB
flags: (nx pae sse sse2 sse3) bmips: 3724 speed: 1862 MHz (max)
Graphics: Card: Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1280x800@59.97hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 945GM x86/MMX/SSE2
GLX Version: 1.4 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-131-generic
Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN bus-ID: 06:00.0
IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
Card-2: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: 2000 bus-ID: 08:08.0
IF: enp8s8 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 80.0GB (9.7% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST980811AS size: 80.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 73G used: 6.3G (10%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 1.06GB used: 0.03GB (3%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 65.0C mobo: 26.8C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 165 Uptime: 1 day Memory: 307.5/990.4MB
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35
user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ^C
user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $

[JeremyB]

In terminal try

Code: Select all

sudo apt update && sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer

Reboot

[keith]

Thanks,
I put in the code you suggested and some "magical" (to me) things happened in the terminal and then I restarted the machine but either I don't know how to access whatever might have resulted or it just didn't work. I still cannot find any wi-fi signal available.

If you can let me know if I should look anywhere in particular for the results or if you or anyone have any other suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks so much for you reply.

Keith

[JeremyB]

See the wireless script link in my signature and post the URL from terminal after the second command is run

[keith]

Hi,
I am posting the result after the first command since it looks like there is a problem there. I might be wrong. I' pretty sure I got everything right in the command line.

linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ wget -N -t 5 -T 10 https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info && chmod +x wireless-
--2018-08-12 11:21:20-- https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 192.30.253.112, 192.30.253.113
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|192.30.253.112|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: ‘wireless-info’

wireless-info [ <=> ] 78.63K 458KB/s in 0.2s

Last-modified header missing -- time-stamps turned off.
2018-08-12 11:21:21 (458 KB/s) - ‘wireless-info’ saved [80521]

chmod: cannot access 'wireless-': No such file or directory
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ^C


If you still think it would be good to carry out the second command please let me know.

Thanks

[JeremyB]

Do

Code: Select all

chmod +x && ./wireless-info && cat wireless-info.txt | nc termbin.com 9999

[keith]

In any case, here is the result after the second command:

linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ wget -N -t 5 -T 10 https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info && chmod +x wireless-
--2018-08-12 11:21:20-- https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 192.30.253.112, 192.30.253.113
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|192.30.253.112|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: ‘wireless-info’

wireless-info [ <=> ] 78.63K 458KB/s in 0.2s

Last-modified header missing -- time-stamps turned off.
2018-08-12 11:21:21 (458 KB/s) - ‘wireless-info’ saved [80521]

chmod: cannot access 'wireless-': No such file or directory
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ^C
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ^C
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ^C
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ cat wireless-info.txt | nc termbin.com 9999
cat: wireless-info.txt: No such file or directory
linda@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $

[JeremyB]

Just run these commands one line at a time

Code: Select all

chmod +x wireless-info
./wireless-info
cat wireless-info.txt | nc termbin.com 9999

[keith]

Sorry for the delay. I'll give that a try as soon as I can. It's at my friend's place now running on the wi-fi extender for the time being. Thanks so much for your attention.

[keith]

Sorry again for the delay and thanks for your continued attention. Here's the result (or non-result) of inputting each of those commands one-by-one.

user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ chmod +x wireless-info
chmod: cannot access 'wireless-info': No such file or directory
user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ ./wireless-info
bash: ./wireless-info: No such file or directory
user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $ cat wireless-info.txt | nc termbin.com 9999
cat: wireless-info.txt: No such file or directory
user1@linda-Presario-C500-RZ343UA-ABA ~ $

I'm guessing I am SOL. Funny, I have downloaded the same Mint install on three different formerly Windows based PC's so far without this problem. Perhaps this latest one is just too old, although Mint works fantastically on it, other than the wi-fi capability, of course. As I say, the use of an ethernet cable out of the wi-fi extender works just fine but if you did have any other ideas (some software that can be downloaded for example) I would still appreciate the chance to give them a try. However, if your conclusion is that the situation is a no-hoper or just not worth the effort, then just let me know so I can let go of hope. Thanks again. Keith