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After having upgraded my Ubuntu from 12.10 to 13.04 the wireless device has stopped working. It simply does not show up in the panel nor in the network settings.

lspci gives:

$ lspci -nn -d 14e4:
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4328] (rev 03)

I have enabled the Broadcom driver under addtional drivers. Also I have run 

$ sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

without error messages... However, when I run

$ sudo modprobe b43

my wifi shows up.

Now, my questions are:

  • What does modprobe do?
  • How to enable modprobe on startup automatically?
  • Is this legit or a workaround that may lead to more trouble in future?
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2
  • Before we propose the wrong solution, let's verify the correct driver for your wireless card. Please open a terminal and run: lspci -nn -d 14e4: Edit your question with the result and we'll proceed.
    – chili555
    May 6, 2013 at 12:41
  • Sorry, I didn't get back to my laptop yesterday. Now, I have edited the question.
    – Jan
    May 7, 2013 at 12:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

If b43 is working well, let's make it persistent. Please open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

It may not be installed; that's fine, just proceed:

sudo su
echo b43 >> /etc/modules
exit

Now does it work as expected on reboot?

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1
  • It does! Thanks a lot. I am not so good in Ubuntu, but whenever you have questions on scientific computing I will be happy to help with that.
    – Jan
    May 7, 2013 at 21:41

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