I got prompted to update a bunch of packages, and something fixed the problem. Now my wireless connection is working. So, thanks and disregard the above!

I should say that in the network connection manager drop-down, under “wireless networks” it says “device not ready”.
sudo lshw -C network says that wlan0 is DISABLED.

Hi,

I just installed Ubuntu today (10.04), trying to extend the life of my Dell Inspiron 6000. I have an ethernet connection, and am trying to get the wireless connection working, so far without success. I have a WPC54G ver 1.2 card. I tried this command:
sudo aptitude install b43-fwcutter
and it didn’t do anything:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Initializing package states… Done
Writing extended state information… Done
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 240 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information… Done
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states… Done

I get the impression from your description that it is supposed to detect the existence of the card and find the right driver and install it? What am I missing?

Next, I tried:
chris@panda:~/WPC54Gv2_40826$ sudo b43-fwcutter bcmwl5.sys
Sorry, the input file is either wrong or not supported by b43-fwcutter.
This file has an unknown MD5sum ebf36d658d0da5b1ea667fa403919c26.

I’d appreciate any suggestions as to how to proceed.

Awesome! You told me exactly what I needed to know to get my old wireless card to work on my daughter’s linux laptop.

Thanks a bunch!