No drivers Dell Inspiron Mini 1210

Hi. I got a Dell Inspiron Mini 1210. It came with Windows XP Home Edition, but I formatted my HD and installed openSUSE 11 with KDE4. My problem is there seems not to exist any driver for my wireless card and for my audio devices!!! I’ve googled around many times and tried the updates and I’ve gotten nothing. Is there anything I can do to solve this???

Please open a terminal and do:

/sbin/lspci -nnk

Post result

Confirm please openSUSE 11.0 not 11.1

Ok, this is what I got after typing that command:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) [8086:8100] (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) Graphics Controller [8086:8108] (rev 07)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) HD Audio Controller [8086:811b] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:8110] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:8112] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) USB UHCI #1 [8086:8114] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) USB UHCI #2 [8086:8115] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) USB UHCI #3 [8086:8116] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) USB EHCI #1 [8086:8117] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
Kernel modules: ehci-hcd
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) LPC Bridge [8086:8119] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: isch_smbus
Kernel modules: i2c-isch
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) IDE Controller [8086:811a] (rev 07)
Kernel driver in use: pata_sch
Kernel modules: pata_sch
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

What does this mean?

I read this:

Note: One exception is the BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] chipset. As of 1/30/09 it is not supported by the b43 driver
From here:
HCL/Network Adapters (Wireless)/Broadcom BCM43xx - openSUSE

So not so good. You need one of the wireless guys to see this. I don’t know the answer. It may be ndiswrapper which uses xp drivers. But wait for advice.

You could read here:
Madwifi or Ndiswrapper Wireless Network Drivers - Suse/openSUSE 10, 11 - LAN & Internet access
Getting Your Wireless to Work - openSUSE Forums

openSUSE by default installs the alsa driver for sound.

The general advice I give for sound problems is to start trying to work your way through the openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide: SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE .

Do NOT use the startup system sound as your criteria for stating sound does not work. Also be certain to check your mixer. Its not uncommon for a mixer setting (master, pcm or speaker) to be muted upon boot. In KDE your mixer is “kmix” (the small speaker in right hand corner). In Gnome your mixer is “alsamixer”.

Note, when testing if you have sound, please copy and paste the following speaker-test into a Gnome terminal or a kde konsole:

speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
Note Linux is case sensitive, and “D” is not the same as “d”. To stop the above test, while the konsole/xterm has the mouse focus, press <CTRL><C> on the keyboard. Note you should check your mixer settings (kmix if using KDE, and alsamixer if using Gnome) to ensure that PCM and Master Volume are set around 95%. Once you have basic sound established you can back off to lower volume levels. Note the test for surround sound is different.

If that test yields errors (and its not uncommon to get errors there), try instead this more simple test: speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twavYou should hear a female voice saying ‘FRONT LEFT’, ‘FRONT RIGHT’ five times. Its quite common that one of those speaker tests will work and one will NOT work, so don’t be distressed if that is the case. IF that test gives sound, stop now, post that the sound test gives sound, and we will look at other possible causes for your applications not giving you the sound you want (such as missing codecs, using the wrong packaged version … etc … ).

Or alternatively, for testing the simple playback, use aplay program. Prepare a WAV file and simply run like:

aplay -vv somefile.wav

With the option -vv, aplay shows the verbose information of the PCM device, and a VU-peak meter during playing the file.

Try those speaker-tests as both a regular user, and also with root permissions. If you have a headset, try with your headset plugged in, and also with your headset not plugged in (for speakers).

Assuming no sound, can you provide more very detailed information so a good recommendation can be given? For openSUSE-11.1, you can do that, with your laptop connected to the internet, by opening a gnome-terminal or a kde konsole and twice copy and paste the following into that terminal/konsole

wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && bash alsa-info.sh

It will ask if you wish to share your audio information. Select YES. It will diagnose your PC’s hardware and software configuration for audio, and it will post its output on the Internet/web. It will give you the URL of the web site. Please post that URL here. JUST the URL.

Also, please copy and paste the following commands one line at a time into a gnome-terminal or a konsole and post here the output: rpm -qa | grep alsa
rpm -qa | grep pulse
rpm -q libasound2
uname -a
cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound… with that information I may be able to make a recommendation.

Also, do NOT waste too much time on this. Simply post on our forum if you get stumped, and continue to look for help that way.