Comment 1 for bug 578970

1) The release of Ubuntu you are using: Luci Lynx, but the problem has been persistent and ongoing since at least Hardy

2) Focus of bug: User Experience with Jockey finding, loading, and activating b43, 43 legacy drivers.

To make sure this an addressable/fixable User Experience bug I'll make the assumption that the intention of the bug reporter is to limit the scope to using Jockey to get Broadcom b43 and b43 legacy drivers working on initial install or upgrade, not on any of the other issues like intermittent connections, wpa connection difficulty, etc., etc.

3) What you expected to happen: That Jockey should load and activate Broadcom b43 and 'b43 Legacy' wifi drivers.

4) What actually happens: Jockey consistently fails to correctly find, load and activate these drivers requiring all manner of research, involving b43-fwcutter, bcmwl source, ndiswrapper, command line fiddling and even sometimes requiring manual make and compile. This is completely unacceptable for Ubuntu to achieve its goals for user friendliness.

This is an appropriate meta bug to file because a comprehensive fix is needed that will ensure that Jockey consistently loads and activates the proprietary Broadcom drivers correctly in a smooth "just works" way.

This is a pervasive problem that is plaguing new the new Ubuntu user's experience. The Ubuntu forums are seeing a steady stream of new Ubuntu users who are trying out the otherwise very user-friendly Lucid Lynx.

To call it "pretty bad" as the bug reporter did is completely understating it. Try "nightmare". Manually working with b43-fwcutter is a nightmare for new users. Not to mention if that DOESN'T work and you actually need to user ndiswrapper instead (as I found I had to after days of arduous trials).

I will come back and post more details of my set up later but for now to try to get the big picture, here's just some of the related reported bugs -- the pattern is very clear. Getting Broadcom wireless to work is a complete nightmare for new Ubuntu users.

355645 Can not set up wireless network on BCM4318 linux (Ubuntu) Confirmed
511379 cannot load Broadcom STA wireless driver (BCM4311)
188975 Broadcom bcm4306 rev 3 chipset not working linux (Ubuntu) Medium In Progress
197558 ssb module breaks BCM4328 with ndiswrapper (regression from 2.6.24-10) linux (Ubuntu) Medium Confirmed
210373 Broadcom 4306 doesn't work! I cannot connect to any wireless network linux (Ubuntu) Medium Incomplete
291271 Jockey Not Detecting Broadcom Wireless Card, When It Should & Provide Use of B43 or STA Driver jockey (Ubuntu) Medium Confirmed
504639 [regression] no wlan on s10e broadcom since update to kernel 2.6.31-17 linux (Ubuntu) Medium Triaged
414751 jockey-gtk crashed with signal 5 in _XError() when loading sta wirelless broadcom driver bcmwl-kernel-source is installed jockey (Ubuntu) Medium Incomplete
552300 Improve apt update error reporting jockey (Ubuntu) Medium Triaged
117729 [ndiswrapper] [broadcom] failure to connect to wpa network after kernel update wpasupplicant (Ubuntu) Low New
191408 Hardware drivers show Broadcom B43 Wireless Driver in use, but wireless doesn't show in Network Manager linux (Ubuntu) Low Incomplete
378549 Wireless network does not connect after boot network-manager (Ubuntu) Low Incomplete
245517 jockey doesn't allow to extract b43 firmware from a local file Jockey Wishlist Triaged
189476 Broadcom 4311 wireless not working in Compaq F572 Ubuntu Undecided Confirmed
203819 Broadcom bcm4312 wireless not detected at all linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Confirmed
219775 [regression] intrepid Broadcom B43 wireless driver not enabled by default - unable to be installed through Hardware Drivers linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
221634 bcm94311MCG wlan hardy heron ndiswrapper (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
239147 Sound Card and Wireless card don't work with kernel 2.6.24-18-386 linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
241917 Wireless does not work under new kernel XX-15 - but works fine under latestkernel XX-14 - Distro 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
279389 Intrepid regression: b43 does not support Broadcom wifi card any more linux (Ubuntu) Undecided In Progress
290042 [intrepid ubuntu] STA, B43 and wl driver issues jockey (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
337147 jaunty alpha last update broke Broadcom "B43" Free wireless driver linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
339293 does not detect PCI BCM4306 jockey (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
351881 jockey-backend crashed because of timeout in b43-fwcutter jockey (Ubuntu) Undecided Triaged
364943 Ubuntu9.04 Live CD installed clean onto a HP ZD 7020US Laptop Wlan not working linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
365857 bcm4328 wifi card doesn't work with a clean install linux-restricted-modules (Ubuntu) Undecided Confirmed
68293 Wi-fi function broken after installing Kubuntu Jauntu and KDE 3.5 linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
93342 BCM4306 not working linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
377789 After upgrading to 9.04 broadcom wireless no longer connects and firefox and graphics behaving strangely, everything worked fine with 8.10. Dell D600 laptop linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
378939 Upgrade to 9.10 Alpha 1 caused Wireless to be disabled linux-backports-modules-2.6.30 (Ubuntu) Undecided New
405920 Wireless does not work on intel classmate linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
405453 Wireless does not work OEM Netbook Common Code Undecided New
408357 no wireless on Dell Mini 10, card BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01) linux-restricted-modules (Ubuntu) Undecided New
408601 B43 does not show up as an option in Restricted Drivers Manager / Hardware Drivers unless already installed. jockey (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
421095 Karmic BCM4311 doesn't work with Broadcom B43 wireless driver and Driver Broadcom STA linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Confirmed
441492 bcmwl kernel source needs to be reinstalled for Broadcom 4312 to work bcmwl (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
203819 Broadcom bcm4312 wireless not detected at all linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Confirmed
465535 Restricted Drivers (jocky) not detecting Broadcom STA or B43 Drivers jockey (Ubuntu) Undecided New
466596 broadcom wireless card don't work linux (Ubuntu) Undecided Incomplete
441492 bcmwl kernel source needs to be reinstalled for Broadcom 4312 to work Jockey Undecided New

etc., etc., etc.