bcmwl-kernel-source 5.10.91 and BCM4312 wireless

[Hank]

Wireless works under Windows 7 and under Ubuntu 9.04 with the restricted driver. The upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 appeared to install the Wireless fine. I reinstalled 9.10 amd 64 from CD and there was no wireless.

After installing all the updates there was now an option to download and activate the wireless driver. Upon doing so the Wireless utility in the upper right shows the wireless as an option but shows that it is disabled. After re-installing the bcmwl-kernel-source package and rebooting the system the wireless begins to work but only until the system is shut down. Then, the bcmwl-kernel-source must again be reinstalled and the system rebooted for the wireless to work. The installation and rebooting is only a temporary fix the change does not hold.

Dell 1546 Inspiron
AMD Turion Processor
Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Graphics ATI Technologies Inc
*-network
  description: Wireless interface
  product: BCM4312 802.11b/g
  vendor: Broadcom Corporation

There appear to be some related issues with this bcmwl-kernel-source and this series of Broadcom wireless adapters. Perhaps the bugs are related. Please let me know if any additional information is needed.

[Roshan James (roshan-james)]

I have the same behavior on my laptop - a recently purchased Dell Vostro 1220. The same wireless card.

  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4312 802.11b/g
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation

ubuntu
    description: Portable Computer
    product: Vostro 1220
    vendor: Dell Inc.
    width: 64 bits

Each time the wireless card stops working, I have to reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source and reboot the machine. The wireless card works for the current session and stops working after a reboot.

[Hank (hljandrich)]

In response to Jeremy Foshee

On my system where I see this bug I am running:

Linux version 2.6.31-20-generic (buildd@crested) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu8) )

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"

[Hank (hljandrich)]

The rfkill utility shows the following.
rfkill list
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes

[Roshan James (roshan-james)]

Some relief can come from remembering to turn off the physical switch for the wireless card before you boot your machine. Once Ubuntu is up, turn on the wireless and things seem to work.

If you you forget to turn it off before starting Ubuntu, you dont need to reinstall bcmwl, simply turn of the machine, turn off wireless, and boot it back up.

[Hank (hljandrich)]

I finally got the Broadcom wireless BCM4312 driver to stick.

In order to do so I had to move or delete the etc/modprob.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf and then reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source in the synaptic package manager. Then, I rebooted the system.
(See the following link. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1308788&page=2)

Also, the system boots up with the wireless off by default. So, I had to press the hardware wireless enable key on the keyboard.

Many thanks to Roshan James for the tip.

[Hank (hljandrich)]

I spoke too soon. The above solution does not completely solve the problem. etc/modprob.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf reappears.

[Roshan James (roshan-james)]

So, it looks like there isnt an issue with the wireless driver - it is the "network manager" that ships with Ubuntu. I just switched to WICD and things seem to be working fine - i.e. I can reboot the computer with wireless networking enabled and WICD will properly connect to the wireless network as expected.

If you do
sudo apt-get install wicd

it will install wicd and uninstall network-manager (he he..). Among other benefits is the fact that WICD has a refresh button (so that a computer waking up from sleep can have its wireless networks refreshed manually instead of you having to wait for NM to refresh every 30secs or so.). Hope this helps some of you.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Hank,

Please be sure to confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ . If the issue remains, please run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 545709

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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[Hank (hljandrich)]

3/31/2010

I tried compiling the driver from the Broadcom website.
http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

But when I download the necesary libraries and run the makefile it creates the files and then deletes them immediately. Perhaps this link will be helpfull for someone else.

4/20/2010
I installed Ubuntu 9.10 i386 and the issue was resolved by installing the bcmwl-kernel-source package with the Synaptic Package Manager. This was on the same system that showed the above issue with Ubuntu 9.10 amd64 installed. The issue appears in the amd64 version but has not been an issue in i386 version even after using the system for several weeks.

Note:
I am currently running Ubuntu 9.10 i386 and am happy with it. I will try to run the additional testing when I get a chance to install the amd 64 version again.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu development release http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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