Dell Inspiron 3520 Hangs During First Boot Configuration

[cbmill...@gmail.com]

First off: it seems that this is a known issue, as the Inspiron 3520 uses the same wireless card as the 3521, which is known to be unsupported due to freezing when networking is enabled (that story is from the HCL). However, it seems that people have create workarounds for other distros using these cards (http://askubuntu.com/questions/175104/how-do-i-install-bcm43142-wireless-drivers-for-dell-vostro-3460-3560#215923), and the problem stems from hybrid wifi-bluetooth drivers from Broadcom.

So, my question is not "why doesn't it work", my question is:

Does anyone have enough knowledge to guide or explain to me how i might be able to work around this issue, and possibly use some of the knowledge from the other distros to get it working? Currently if I even try to install qubes it freezes on first boot on the step "setting up networking". is there a way to bypass this step, etc? So that maybe I can get into qubes at least and play around with the drivers?


Finally, I was able to get Qubes working 100% on my other Dell, an Inspiron 13z 5323. The difference, I believe, is that I have the config of that laptop with a different network card than the 5320/5321 (aka the Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 + BT 4.0, instead of the Dell wireless 1703/1704). Not sure if that helps, but there it is.

Thanks,

Chris

[cbmill...@gmail.com]

Actually, solved my own problem. The wireless cards were trivial to switch, and replacing the Dell Wireless card with the Intel Centrino N-2230 fixed the problem. I wanted to use the Inspiron 3520 because of the better CPU and internal graphics (i5), so anyone else that has this issue can also just change to the compatible wireless card as a work around.