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This is my first installation of Ubuntu, but I've been running it live on a DVD and flash drive for months. Today I installed Ubuntu 13.04 onto a 3-year old Lenovo G550 laptop, and it has a proprietary Broadcom wireless driver.

When I booted Ubuntu as a live system from the DVD, telling Ubuntu to use the proprietary driver in the settings menu was straightforward, and I was able to connect to my home wifi. However, after installation, I attempted to do the same process, but after I hit "apply changes" after selecting "use broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source from bcmwl-kernel-source (propretary)", I was met by a pop-up telling me to authenticate. I entered my password, and hit enter. The window dims, a bar indicates that the change is working, but then it changes again to "do not use driver."

For some reason, the driver just won't install. It worked when I was running Ubuntu live, but after installation it won't work. What do I do? My laptop is compromised if I can't use the wireless (because Windows 7 crashed on the computer).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Sometimes a kick fixes it (I mean reboot the PC).
    – Braiam
    Aug 26, 2013 at 23:33
  • I also faced similar problems.... None of the above steps worked for me.... Pls help me out.... Thanks
    – user269044
    Apr 15, 2014 at 3:02
  • Please reply if the Saurav Kumar's solution works.
    – Danatela
    Apr 15, 2014 at 3:36
  • Please consider my working solution for Cinnamon 64x "Rebecca" for the same issue: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/182950/… Apr 11, 2015 at 21:42

5 Answers 5

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It seems that there is some problem occurred when you installed Wireless Broadcom 802.11 driver. You can give a try to followings:

  1. Open a terminal and execute following commands:

    $ sudo (jockey-gtk &)
    $ sudo update-grub
    $ sudo update-initramfs -u
    

    jockey-gtk will automatically searches all available drivers and try to fix it. Then restart your system.

  2. Try to reconfigure installed Broadcom Wireless Driver

    $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure bcmwl-kernel-source
    

    if it still doesn't work then re-install it by completely removing it:

    $ sudo apt-get autoremove bcmwl-kernel-source
    $ sudo apt-get --purge remove bcmwl-kernel-source
    $ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
    
  3. Try to update your system, sometimes updating fixes a lot of issues. Update your system after removing any broken packages, residual unused packages, execute these commands:

    $ sudo apt-get autoremove
    $ sudo apt-get autoclean
    $ sudo apt-get install
    $ sudo apt-get update
    $ sudo apt-get upgrade
    

I hope any of these steps work for you. Reply if something goes wrong..

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  • sorry --- navigating the site yesterday with a phone I inadvertently downvoted it. Had to do a null edit to remove the downvote.
    – Rmano
    Apr 15, 2014 at 14:11
  • 1
    @SauravKumar The suggested command sudo (jockey-gtk &) throws a bash syntax error. Could you please consider this and possibly revise? Oct 21, 2016 at 13:31
  • Yes, sudo (jockey-gtk &) gives an error bash: syntax error near unexpected token 'jockey-gtk'
    – Ronin
    Feb 5 at 11:30
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Uninstall the bcmwl-kernel-source package by issuing the following command on a terminal:

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source

make sure that the firmware-b43-installer and the b43-fwcutter packages are installed (of course you will need internet by others means):

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

type into terminal:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep 'bcm'

(you may want to copy this) and see if the term 'blacklist bcm43xx' is there

if it is, type cd /etc/modprobe.d/ and then sudo gedit blacklist.conf

put a # in front of the line: blacklist bcm43xx

reboot

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Please consider my working response for Cinnamon 64x "Rebecca" here:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/182950/bcm43142-wont-work-with-mint-17-1-cinnamon-x64/195691#195691

  1. Open the DVD / USB with the Linux install.

  2. Go to /pool/main/e/eglibc.

  3. Install both packages. (libc6-dev & libc-dev-bin)

  4. Go to /pool/main/b/bcmwl.
  5. Install package. (bcmwl-kernel-source).

Note: If you don't find the packages there, search them elsewhere in /pool. (updates might change paths)

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Just solved same problem. Easiest solution:

  1. Connect to internet via cable
  2. Try again to select the Broadcom adaptorand apply changes

This will automatically update what is needed and the change will take effect. At least it worked for me.

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I did it! Like this.

  1. Update Ubuntu to latest release (on cable-wired)- Software Update
  2. Software Update -> Additional Drivers -> wait that system finds driver - check it and Apply.
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