Broadcom bcmwl driver failed to compile when upgrade to kernel 4.15.0-29 [error: implicit declaration of function ‘init_timer’]

[Hoang-Anh Nguyen]

1) lsb-release -a
Distributor ID: neon
Description: KDE neon User Edition 5.13
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

2) apt-cache policy bcmwl-kernel-source
bcmwl-kernel-source:
  Installed: 6.30.223.271+bdcom-0ubuntu1~1.2
  Candidate: 6.30.223.271+bdcom-0ubuntu1~1.2
  ...

3) What you expected to happen
  The new kernel installs and dkms modules compile normally

4) What happened instead
This error shows up when upgrade to kernel 4.15.0-29:

Processing triggers for linux-image-4.15.0-29-generic (4.15.0-29.31~16.04.1) ...
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms:
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.15.0-29-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/make.log for more information.

It seems there are some compilation errors in make.log:

  CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.o
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c: In function ‘osl_os_get_image_block’:
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:1083:26: warning: passing argument 2 of ‘kernel_read’ makes pointer from integer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]
  rdlen = kernel_read(fp, fp->f_pos, buf, len);
                          ^
In file included from ./include/linux/huge_mm.h:7:0,
                 from ./include/linux/mm.h:463,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/include/linuxver.h:65,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:25:
./include/linux/fs.h:2858:16: note: expected ‘void *’ but argument is of type ‘loff_t {aka long long int}’
 extern ssize_t kernel_read(struct file *, void *, size_t, loff_t *);
                ^
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:1083:37: warning: passing argument 3 of ‘kernel_read’ makes integer from pointer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]
  rdlen = kernel_read(fp, fp->f_pos, buf, len);
                                     ^
In file included from ./include/linux/huge_mm.h:7:0,
                 from ./include/linux/mm.h:463,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/include/linuxver.h:65,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:25:
./include/linux/fs.h:2858:16: note: expected ‘size_t {aka long unsigned int}’ but argument is of type ‘char *’
 extern ssize_t kernel_read(struct file *, void *, size_t, loff_t *);
                ^
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:1083:42: warning: passing argument 4 of ‘kernel_read’ makes pointer from integer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]
  rdlen = kernel_read(fp, fp->f_pos, buf, len);
                                          ^
In file included from ./include/linux/huge_mm.h:7:0,
                 from ./include/linux/mm.h:463,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/include/linuxver.h:65,
                 from /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/shared/linux_osl.c:25:
./include/linux/fs.h:2858:16: note: expected ‘loff_t * {aka long long int *}’ but argument is of type ‘int’
 extern ssize_t kernel_read(struct file *, void *, size_t, loff_t *);
                ^
  CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c: In function ‘wl_init_timer’:
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:2359:2: error: implicit declaration of function ‘init_timer’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
  init_timer(&t->timer);
  ^
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:2360:10: error: ‘struct timer_list’ has no member named ‘data’
  t->timer.data = (ulong) t;
          ^
/var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.271+bdcom/build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:2361:20: error: assignment from incompatible pointer type [-Werror=incompatible-pointer-types]
  t->timer.function = wl_timer;
                    ^
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1757008, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.