Current File : //usr/share/help/C/gnome-help/net-wireless-troubleshooting-device-drivers.page
<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
type="topic" style="task"
id="net-wireless-troubleshooting-device-drivers">
<info>
<link type="guide" xref="net-wireless-troubleshooting"/>
<revision pkgversion="3.4.0" date="2012-03-05" status="outdated"/>
<revision pkgversion="3.10" date="2013-11-10" status="review"/>
<revision pkgversion="3.18" date="2015-09-28" status="final"/>
<credit type="author">
<name>Contributors to the Ubuntu documentation wiki</name>
</credit>
<credit type="author">
<name>Phil Bull</name>
<email>philbull@gmail.com</email>
</credit>
<include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
<desc>Some device drivers don’t work very well with certain wireless
adapters, so you may need to find a better one.</desc>
</info>
<title>Wireless network troubleshooter</title>
<subtitle>Make sure that working device drivers are installed</subtitle>
<!-- Needs links (see below) -->
<p>In this step you can check to see if you can get working device drivers
for your wireless adapter. A <em>device driver</em> is a piece of software
which tells the computer how to make a hardware device work properly. Even
though the wireless adapter has been recognized by the computer, it may not
have drivers which work very well. You may be able to find different drivers
for the wireless adapter which do work. Try some of the options below:</p>
<list>
<item>
<p>Check to see if your wireless adapter is on a list of supported
devices.</p>
<p>Most Linux distributions keep a list of wireless devices that they
have support for. Sometimes, these lists provide extra information on how
to get the drivers for certain adapters working properly. Go to the list
for your distribution (for example,
<link href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported">Ubuntu</link>,
<link href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_configuration">Arch</link>,
<link href="https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers">Fedora</link> or
<link href="http://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Network_(Wireless)">openSUSE</link>)
and see if your make and model of wireless adapter is listed. You may be
able to use some of the information there to get your wireless drivers
working.</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>Look for restricted (binary) drivers.</p>
<p>Many Linux distributions only come with device drivers which are
<em>free</em> and <em>open source</em>. This is because they cannot
distribute drivers which are proprietary, or closed-source. If the
correct driver for your wireless adapter is only available in a non-free,
or “binary-only” version, it may not be installed by default. If this is
the case, look on the wireless adapter manufacturer’s website to see if
they have any Linux drivers.</p>
<p>Some Linux distributions have a tool that can download restricted
drivers for you. If your distribution has one of these, use it to see if
it can find any wireless drivers for you.</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>Use the Windows drivers for your adapter.</p>
<p>In general, you cannot use a device driver designed for one operating
system (like Windows) on another operating system (like Linux). This is
because they have different ways of handling devices. For wireless
adapters, however, you can install a compatibility layer called
<em>NDISwrapper</em> which lets you use some Windows wireless drivers on
Linux. This is useful because wireless adapters almost always have
Windows drivers available for them, whereas Linux drivers are sometimes
not available. You can learn more about how to use NDISwrapper
<link href="https://sourceforge.net/p/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper/Main_Page/">here</link>.
Note that not all wireless drivers can be used through NDISwrapper.</p>
</item>
</list>
<p>If none of these options work, you may want to try a different wireless
adapter to see if you can get that working. USB wireless adapters are often
quite cheap, and will plug into any computer. You should check that the
adapter is compatible with your Linux distribution before buying it,
though.</p>
</page>
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