wl driver doesnt work with kernel .27-2 and broadcom chipset

[Vishal Rao]

i have an hp tablet tx1302au with broadcom wifi chipset. installed intrepid alpha4 (amd64) and updated it to get the latest and greatest kernel .27-2

by default the wl restricted driver is installed enabled but does not show up in network manager.

doing "lsmod | grep wl" only shows:

wl 1085520 0
ieee80211_crypt 14596 1 wl

shouldnt it also show some "mac80211" line in there somewhere?

note: i tried wl on hardy (amd64) with this thread and it worked well for me: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=880218

but in any case if i disable/blacklist wl and install b43 driver with firmware my wifi works very well with networkmanager and all.

please let me know if i should be posting other output such as lspci -nn, dpkg -l, dmesg, uname -a etc... will do that shortly...

[James Schriver (dashua)]

Confirmed for a BCM 4328 (Dell XPS m1530), which does work in Hardy. Wl driver shows up in restricted drivers manager, but does not show in network manager.

[Vishal Rao (vishalrao)]

Same issue with fresh install of Intrepid Alpha 5.

The wl driver shows as "in use" in driver manager (no b43 listed there) and Network Manager has option to connect to AP but I get a "connection disconnected" popup in the notification area (I specify WPA2 personal).

Blacklisted b43/ssb and now Network Manager only recognises ethernet no wlan.

Any files/log I can post?

[Tobias Stegmann (punischdude)]

Same problem over here, using latest 2.6.27-4.

The driver worked very well with 2.6.27-3 after unloading/blacklisting ssb and b43

[Tobias Stegmann (punischdude)]

Dunno how, but I got it working using exactly the suggestion from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/275594

The ssb module seems to be loaded, although I blacklisted it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

[Sebastian Thürrschmidt (thuerrschmidt)]

Confirmed for Intrepid Beta (2 October), fresh install on MacBook 4,1. The workaround mentioned above does the trick, blacklisting ssb does not.

[Tobias Stegmann (punischdude)]

Related issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/227158

Updating initramfs after blacklisting ssb does the trick.

[gabr10 (gabriobarbieri)]

I can confirm this but on 8.10 beta on an HP Pavilion DV6870us with a broadcom wireless card. WIll try Updating initramfs after blacklisting ssb to see if it makes a difference.

[gabr10 (gabriobarbieri)]

After running:

sudo rmmod ssb
sudo rmmod wl
sudo modprobe wl

This seems to do the trick indeed. Would be nice to have it fixed in the final Intrepid release though...

Cheers.

Gabrio

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

There is now support in the restricted drivers manager (Jockey) for this adapter.

[Pietro Battiston (toobaz)]

There already was, but it conflicts with ssb, see duplicate for more info.

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

Its my understanding that Jockey is supposed to detect if there is a b44 and decline to blacklist ssb if so. b44 and wl are mutually exclusive because of the b44 driver dependence on ssb. However, wl cannot load in the presence of ssb because they both claim the same PCI identifiers. I've been bugging Broadcom to fix their driver.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

This behavior is not going to change anytime soon. Jockey is used to turn on and off the different drivers (blacklist).

[Pietro Battiston (toobaz)]

Tim: now I get it. And I can confirm the fix. Sorry for misunderstanding.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

[Timothy R. Chavez (timrchavez)]

The bug task for the somerville project has been removed by an automated script. This bug has been cloned on that project and is available here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1305575