no WiFi on 14.04

[O. Sinclair]

On 20/05/2014 00:27, Uriah Heep wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestions. There was indeed a button to press. The
> button was lit as it was supposed to but after pressing the light came
> back on and looked as if nothing happened but a window popped up
> indicating wireless connections were available so I was able to log on
> to the wireless.
>
> Now I am going to pound my head for being so stupid.
>
> Thanks all
>
>
> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 2:22 AM, O. Sinclair <o.sinclair at gmail.com
> <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 19/05/2014 08:15, Doug wrote:
>
>
>         On 05/18/2014 10:39 PM, Uriah Heep wrote:
>
>             Windows 8 gave me incentive to try Linux again. I have an old
>             "5-6years" Acer laptop that I put 14.04 on and all seems
>             well except
>             that I get nothing on WiFi. Any simple suggestions for me
>             would be
>             appreciated.
>
>             stan
>
>
>         There is likely to be a switch on the laptop that must be turned on.
>         In addition, it's possible that the wireless "card"--may not be
>         an actual
>         card, but part of the mobo--may be obsolete for the version of
>         software you're running. That is, there may not be a driver for
>         a 6-year-old Broadcom, or whatever it is, in Windows 8.
>         The first you can check on and fix. I don't know about the second.
>
>     It could be that you have a wifi that is not supported by open
>     source software. Hopefully you have a "cable ethernet" socket and
>     can connect to internet using that.
>
>     Then in System Settings try the "Driver Manager" to see if you get
>     the option to install software for your wifi hardware
>
Now that you are connected, try the Driver Manager and you might find 
that there is a proprietary driver available. I myself have a Broadcomm 
wifi for which there are both FOSS and proprietary drivers. As it 
happens I find the open source works better in all ways but powersaving 
so I prefer it - but you may find it different.

Regards,
Sinclair