Broadcom wifi driver (bcmwl-kernel-source) is not active in a live session till after you run the installer and enable restricted addons

[Daniel van Vugt]

On a Macbook Air, the Broadcom wifi driver (bcmwl-kernel-source) is not active (installed) in a live session till you run the installer (AND choose restricted addons).

This gives the user the impression that the live session doesn't support wifi. Although the system knows it's there:

$ ubuntu-drivers list
bcmwl-kernel-source

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

WORKAROUND:

1. Connect to ethernet via a USB adapter.

2. sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

This file is in /pool/restricted/b/bcmwl/bcmwl-kernel-source_6.30.223.271+bdcom-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb

Is it not installed when you select "Restricted Add-ons"?
What is the output of "ubuntu-drivers list" on this machine?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

"Restricted Add-ons" can't install because there is no internet access to get them. There is no internet access because of this bug. :)

In previous Ubuntu releases I think we included critical drivers like bcmwl-kernel-source on the ISO...?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

In the cosmic live session:

$ ubuntu-drivers list
bcmwl-kernel-source

And yes you're right - the driver is in the ISO, but under /cdrom/pool...

For some reason I thought any restricted drivers available in the ISO would be active before the installer started. So choosing "Restricted Add-ons" while I had no wifi would be pointless. But it's not. I think this behaviour has changed compared to older releases.

So this bug is invalid in the original form. I will reword it into something that's a real bug. Thanks :)