[regression] intrepid Broadcom B43 wireless driver not enabled by default - unable to be installed through Hardware Drivers

[BinoPanda]

  it sounds a lot like the bug listed "Hardware drivers show Broadcom B43 Wireless Driver in use, but wireless doesn't show in Network Manager" except i see my wireless in the network manager but it wont enable when i click it and if it does, it still wont work and the box is unpressed again. i have a Dell inspiron B130.

p.s. I googled some solutions but none worked for me

Steps to fix:

   1. Open the terminal
   2. type this
      sudo apt-get install build-essential
   3. copy and paste OR type this (each is a separate line in the terminal)
      wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      tar xjf b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      cd b43-fwcutter-011
      make
      cd ..
   4. then
      export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
      wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod
      sudo ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w "/lib/firmware" wl_apsta.o
   5. Now reboot Ubuntu and you should be good to go.

Note that you FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR might change with the distro.

[Irving Duran (blacknred0)]

one of my friends just recently installed Hardy and it is having the same problem. it says that the software could not be shipped legally with the system. does anybody knows where to find these drivers?

thank you in advance

[Fernando Carlos de Sousa (fernandoanatomia)]

I have a Dell Vostro 1000 with a Broadcom 4312 wireless card and it used to work on Feisty but with Hardy I have the same problem described here...

[Larry Finger (larry-finger)]

The drivers ship with the system. It is the firmware that _MUST_ be installed separately. Use fwcutter for that.

[Irving Duran (blacknred0)]

this tutorial worked for me

NOTE: THIS TUTORIAL WAS MADE USING LINUX UBUNTU 2.6.24 KERNEL. IT HASN’T BEEN TESTED ON OTHER DISTROS NEITHER OTHER KERNELS. DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Steps:

   1. Open the terminal
   2. type this
      sudo apt-get install build-essential
   3. copy and paste OR type this (each is a separate line in the terminal)
      wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      tar xjf b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      cd b43-fwcutter-011
      make
      cd ..
   4. then
      export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
      wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod
      sudo ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w "/lib/firmware" wl_apsta.o
   5. Now reboot Ubuntu and you should be good to go.

Note that you FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR might change with the distro.

[Jag Dragon (jagdragon-deactivatedaccount)]

I did almost exactly what was written above, but used Ubuntu packages rather than downloading the source code for fwcutter and compiling that. Here is what I did:

- Open a new terminal
- sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter
- wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
- tar -xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
- cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod
- sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
- Close the terminal and reboot

This tutorial (or something like it) was found at http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 .
NOTE: This driver will only work on Linux kernel 2.6.24 or older. To find out what kernel version you have, type `uname -r` into a terminal. As of the time of writing, Hardy Heron (8.04) uses 2.6.24, so unless you have manually installed a newer kernel, the above tutorial will work for you.

Enjoy your wireless!

[Ted Armitage (ted-armitage-gmail)]

I clicked on the menu bar: System, Administration, Hardware Drivers

This gave a panel with a list of hardware needing proprietary drivers.

I clicked on the ENABLE box and followed the instructions and it all seemed to happen. My wireless lan showed the signal strengths for about 18 nearby networks as well as my own, but I could not connect.

 Among the files left behind was a shellscript:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

dir=$(mktemp -d)
cd "$dir"
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod/wl_apsta_mimo.o
rm -rf "$dir"
chmod o+rx /lib/firmware/b43 /lib/firmware/b43legacy

So I'm still tethered by my ethernet cable!

[Ted Armitage (ted-armitage-gmail)]

..... so, inspired by a comment in another bug report, I switched off MAC ADDRESS access control in my router. This seemed to solve the problem, but the router registered the MAC ADDRESS as 00 00 00 1a 73 82. A few minutes later the correct MAC ADDRESS ( 00 1a 73 82 68 cc ) appeared on the router, but with a hostname "unknown".

The connection worked erratically for a few minutes, but then stopped. I looked for it in the Ubuntu network manager, but my wireless network had disappeared ( although all the other wireless networks were still displayed).

So I rebooted Ubuntu and my network appeared back in the list.

[Ted Armitage (ted-armitage-gmail)]

......... now ok. I found this solution on the ubuntu forum:

 Having trouble w/ Broadcom on Hardy? Give this a shot
Hi Everyone:

In an effort to get an idea how a new driver that is being introduced to hardy is working out, I'd like to make a small call for testing.

This driver is being introduced in hardy, but the GUI to enable it in Jockey is not yet ready. It should support recent Broadcom A/B/G/N adapters. As advertised on their site, this means the 4311, 4312, 4321,and 4322 adapters. http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
Older adapters may be enabled as well, but this is awaiting verification.

If you are having trouble w/ b43, or trouble with ndiswrapper please give this a shot. The more feedback, the better.

To enable it:

1) Create a blacklist file, /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43. In this file, have these contents:
Code:

blacklist b43
blacklist ssb
blacklist b43legacy

2) Deactivate any ndiswrapper installed drivers. There should be a remove option for ndiswrapper.

3) Update your initramfs
Code:

sudo update-initramfs -u

4) Activate Hardy proposed.
Select System->Administration->Software sources. Check the box for proposed updates. Hit close and let it refresh.

5) Open up Synaptic. Search for the package entitled "linux" and mark it for update. This should also automatically mark linux-image-2.6.24-20-generic, linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-20, and linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24. Perform the updates.

6) Deactivate hardy proposed.
Uncheck that box from Software sources. Let it reload the sources. You don't need any of the other updates, and you don't want to risk stability of your system.

7) Reboot
Things should work on this next boot. Please report back some feedback. To be consistent and have good data, please be sure to post the following information with your posts:

    * uname -a
    * lspci -vv -nn
    * dpkg -l | grep linux-restricted

The GUI to activate isn't ready, and this won't be copied over to hardy-updates until ready, so this is more of an early look for support to see how things are working.

--------
If this doesn't work for you and you want to revert back, follow these steps.
1) Boot into the old kernel.
At the screen "PRESS ESC to open boot menu", press escape. select your old kernel.

2) Open up synaptic.
Remove linux-image-2.6.24-20-generic

3) Remove /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43
Code:

sudo rm -rf /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43

4) Update your initramfs
Code:

sudo update-initramfs -u

Last edited by superm1; 23 Hours Ago at 10:36 AM.

[SteveH (stephen-huggins)]

Hi Ted,

First I tried the reinstalling the Broadcom stuff as in the post by Jag Dragon. Then I tried using the 2.6.24-20 image with your modifications above. The new driver worked OK however the new kernel kept freezing from time to time so I applied your modifications to revert back and somehow my wireless interface started to work OK. I had originally picked up this thread because I was seeing similar wireless problems as the other guys in the beginning of the thread.

[valentin (valentin67)]

I used the instructions posted by
jag dragon
it works perfect for me
thanks jag dragon

[gary (fordgwf)]

You guys rock!!!!!!!!!!

This is exactly what I needed, and it works fantastic.
Thanks.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release (Intrepid)? Thanks in advance.

[gary (fordgwf)]

I just loaded Intrepid, and had some trouble. I used the steps from "blacknred0" as repeated below and it works beautifully...

Steps:

   1. Open the terminal
   2. type this
      sudo apt-get install build-essential
   3. copy and paste OR type this (each is a separate line in the terminal)
      wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      tar xjf b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2
      cd b43-fwcutter-011
      make
      cd ..
   4. then
      export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
      wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
      cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod
      sudo ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w "/lib/firmware" wl_apsta.o
   5. Now reboot Ubuntu and you should be good to go.

Note that you FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR might change with the distro.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Marking as Confirmed there is enough info here to begin working on it.

[fachex (fabianlazarte)]

I followed exactly the way blacknred0 put it and it worked on Ubuntu Ultimate 1.9 (HH 8.04). thank you dude!!!

[AceLan Kao (acelankao)]

Unfortunately it seems this bug is still an issue. Can you confirm this issue exists with the most recent Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release - http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-desktop . Please let us know your results. Thanks.

[John Gilmore (gnu-gilmore)]

I have a Dell Mini 10v netbook, bought with Linux installed. Today I tried running the Ubuntu Karmic UNR *Beta* release, booted as a live image from an SD card in a USB reader. It booted up fine, and found the wired Ethernet chip, but couldn't talk with the Broadcom 4312:

[ 83.319803] compal-laptop: Identified laptop model 'Dell Mini 10v'.
[ 83.321454] compal-laptop: driver 0.2.6 successfully loaded.
[ 83.394961] dell-wmi: No known WMI GUID found
[ 83.538065] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4312 WLAN found (core revision 15)
[ 83.580934] b43-phy0 ERROR: FOUND UNSUPPORTED PHY (Analog 6, Type 5, Revision 1)
[ 83.581048] b43: probe of ssb0:0 failed with error -95
[ 83.581139] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PL, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]

The Live image actually prompted me with a GUI notification, to install proprietary drivers! I declined at first, but later went back via System -> Hardware Drivers and it offered two drivers (fwcutter and the firmware it needed to cut from). I installed both, by clicking on the "Enable" button for each one, and got these kernel messages:

[ 3367.655511] b43-pci-bridge 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
[ 3448.770575] lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
[ 3448.770588] lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
[ 3448.777883] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[ 3448.777894] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 3448.787425] wl 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 3448.787455] wl 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 3448.852936] lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'TKIP'
[ 3448.853547] eth1: Broadcom BCM4315 802.11 Wireless Controller 5.10.91.9
[ 3448.937571] wl 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
[ 3448.938111] wl 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 3448.938141] wl 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 3448.972050] eth1: Broadcom BCM4315 802.11 Wireless Controller 5.10.91.9
[ 3459.920033] eth1: no IPv6 routers present

The wifi started being visible in the NetworkManager widget (previously it would only tell me about the hardwired Ethernet),
and I saw NetworkManager messages in syslog.

When I tried to connect to a wireless access point, it had trouble, though:

Oct 14 01:41:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[2979]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Oct 14 01:42:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[2979]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Oct 14 01:43:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[2979]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Oct 14 01:44:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[2979]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Oct 14 01:45:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[2979]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: user_connection_updated_cb: assertion `old_connection != NULL' failed
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (eth1) starting connection 'Auto ToadHall2'
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (eth1): device state change: 3 -> 4 (reason 0)
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled...
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started...
Oct 14 01:45:45 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure...

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks you for letting us know that this is still an issue. In Karmic, please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 219775

This will help us to find and resolve the problem. Bear in mind that you may need to install the python-launchpadlib package from the universe repository. Additionally, when prompted to give apport-collect permissions for Launchpad you will need to give it at least the ability to "Change Non-Private" data as it will be adding information to your bug report. Thanks in advance!

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport, either via the appropriate application's "Help -> Report a Problem" menu or using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[maat-untu (for-correspondences)]

jag Dragon jag Dragon jag Dragon - you are great. after hours (15 maybe) trying to resolve this, i find this thread and jag Dragon's fix. Especially thank you to those individuals that found it worked and made comments that it did.... I was ready to do a clean install. If it wasn't for jag Dragon and the user valentin for confirming in the comments that it helped him. Thank you thank you. It took two reboots and two re-enabling, but it finally worked.

FYI Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron - Apple iBook G4 - 12" 933mhz powerpc (ppc)

and more information about my Apple's Airport Extreme card

Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
Chipsest 14e4:4320 (rev 03 means it uses b43)
Linux kernel 2.6.24-26 powerpc ppc X.Org X Server 1.4.0.90

did i mention i was grateful? I even registered just to say thanks. Leechers suck!!

[Brad Krause (brad-krause)]

Yes, it was annoying to have to search all over creation to find the fwcutter solution (which does, admittedly, work well vs. NDIS wrapper mess). I understand the packaging issue with Broadcom firmware, but there is no reason a notification with instructions can't pop up in a Firefox window when a Broadcom card is detected.

Thanks go to everyone who contributed to getting the fwcutter solution working.

[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 release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . 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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