Comment 44 for bug 410963

In Karmic Kubuntu, BCM4312 (wireless on hp 550) does not work out the box. System > hardwaredrivers finds two drivers for the card. The free driver (b43) does not work. The proprietary one (wl) works, but the very installation may freeze your box. First, kde was frozen. I tried to restart kdm, and then the box froze, After after swithching of and boot, everything seems to work fine, incl. wireless.

Thus, there is no need to compile your kernel, etc., though it is though way to install a driver ;-)

NB: Before you activate the proprietary driver, you must deactivate the free driver. Else, your kernel may be destroyed!!! (That was what happened on my box. My luck was that there was an older kernel in the grub menu. Else, I would have been a bit annoyed!!!)

I have attached messages, if someone should like to investestigate the phenomenon: My hp550 froze two times this morning. First time, I had to reinstall kernel-2.6.31-15. Second time, I just had to boot. The last two lines of messages.1 are:
Nov 28 15:55:23 lap kernel: [ 9015.050364] type=1505 audit(1259420123.625:34): operation="profile_load" pid=27709 name=/usr/bin/evince-thumbnailer
Nov 29 08:03:51 lap rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="963" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] rsyslogd was HUPed, type 'lightweight'.