Broadcom Wireless for 8.10

[Ayuthia]

Hi,

I followed your instructions but that didn't solve my problem... I don't know why, but since I updated my Ubuntu to interpid and installed the necessary "drivers" for the WLAN and worked for about one week, and after that, for no specific reason it just stoped working... When I run

sudo iwlist scan

it gives the following result:

wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

for

iwconfig

I get:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I'm relatively new to Ubuntu so I'll need some help finding the solution. Tnx in advance

Welcome! Can you please go into the Terminal and post the results of:

lshw -C network

This will let us see if the firmware has been installed and it is using the correct wireless module.

It also looks like your network is not up yet. You might try:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwlist scan

This will try to bring up your wireless and then scan for sites.

[jng085]

Hello I am new to ubuntu and i have been trying many steps in this thread however i am not able to get wireless up. i did a fresh install and tried to go the ndiswrapper route with no success. Here is my info below

james@Fios:~$ sudo iwlist scan
[sudo] password for james: 
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

wmaster0  Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

pan0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

james@Fios:~$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

pan0      no wireless extensions.

james@Fios:~$ lshw -C network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:13:72:18:36:a5
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=0.3.3.3-k6 firmware=0.4-1 ip=192.168.1.6 latency=0 module=e1000e multicast=yes
  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 4
       bus info: pci@0000:05:04.0
       version: 02
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=64 module=ssb
  *-network:0 DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 00:23:69:09:1d:33
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
  *-network:1 DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 3
       logical name: pan0
       serial: 8e:70:74:d2:8b:df
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A multicast=yes
james@Fios:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

[digitalramble]

I appear to have the dreaded 4315, but I thought I'd add more info to the mix.

First of all:
lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

Now then, here's my experience. This is a brand new HP laptop, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of 9.04 a few days ago. The wireless worked out of the box for a few hours (on a mac address based wireless connection). When I shut it down and went home to my WEP based wireless, it went into an infinite loop of asking me for the (verified correct) WEP password, getting it, then coming back for the WEP password lather rinse repeat. After rebooting, the wireless icon (network manager) behaved as if there simply was no wireless network to be had.

I thought perhaps 9.04 wasn't quite prime time for this, installed 8.10 and the wireless never worked, just sat there and pretended that no wireless (mac address or WEP or whatever) even existed.

But all the lspci and iwconfig and ifconfig checks looked like it knew the hardware was there.

So for the heck of it I reinstalled 9.04, and I had the same thing happen, only it connected just fine to the WEP wireless for several hours before something happened and it dropped back into the cycle of asking me for the WEP password over adn over again until reboot after which it couldn't see any existing wireless at all.

Dropped in a USB wireless dongle and was connected in 10 seconds.

I have not done anything else besides this, I was researching the b43/legacy stuff until I found out that 4315 is unsupported (as described in this undated site: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 ) and eventually stumbled on this page after more googling. The only advice i found on this thread was to try the ndiswrapper (which I have not) or the Broadcom STA driver. Is the latter the proprietary driver that gets listed under System->Administration->Hardware Drivers? Because if so, that was installed and activated from the get go on the 9.04 installation (but not on the 8.10)...

Comments, etc, greatly appreciated. This is somewhat annoying, because when I got this laptop I was under the impression they had Intel wireless installed in this model (dv4tse), *grumble*... I did not want to get tangled in broadcom...

[Favux]

Hi digitalramble,

When NM asks for the password is the password box filled with what looks like a hex hash? If so this work-around may apply to you:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1010650

Might be worth a look.

[digitalramble]

Hi digitalramble,

When NM asks for the password is the password box filled with what looks like a hex hash? If so this work-around may apply to you:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1010650

Might be worth a look.

Thanks for the pointer...I checked it out, but it appears to discuss issues with trying tu use WPA -- I am actually using plain ol' WEP (don't want to futz with a working router, esp as I'm not the only one using it )

However, after thinking about what that article had to say about how NM seems to rewrite the config files (badly), and after discovering that it was a fresh reinstall of *NM* that solved its inability to see/use the wireless, I set it to not auto connect as kind of a test...it's been working for a couple days now, so I have my fingers cross...thanks!

[Favux]

Hi digitalramble,

Good deal, I hope it keeps working for you. And I should have said last time that yes the Broadcom STA wireless driver (wl) is the proprietary Broadcom driver.

[blackzmage]

I get the "cannot open input file" when I enter "sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_m"

[Ayuthia]

I get the "cannot open input file" when I enter "sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_m"

You might to make sure that you are in the correct directory. Also, it looks like you did not get the full name of the file. Did you mean to use:

sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o