0

While installing 12.04.01 (Alternate) on a netbook (Samsung N150Plus), Ubuntu informed me that I'd need the firmware brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw. I skipped this step.

If I understand this page correctly, the mentioned firmware is a WLAN driver.

However, after the Ubuntu installation was completed, the WLAN worked out of the box. After a few minutes, Ubuntu informed me that there is a firmware update available, which would be the mentioned firmware.

Do I need to install this? Is Ubuntu using some kind of "lite" WLAN driver and I might run into problems with certain networks in the future, if I don't use the firmware? Would there be benefits in using the firmware? (maybe longer runtime because of lower consumption?)

1 Answer 1

0

It's working out of the box because the system is using the generic driver, that is not exact driver for the device but near to it. Some features of the device may not be available by that way. If you installed the additional driver, the device will running more "normal". It won't be any big problem if you deny to install it, but for me, I'll install all drivers that are shown up in Additional Drivers. (I guess)

ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST ARE MY OWN GUESSING, MAY NOT BE 100% CORRECT.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .