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I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 on a Dell Inspiron 1545 and I cannot access the internet. On the menu, Wired says the cable is unplugged and Wireless cannot find any network available.

The laptop comes with a Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN MiniCard.

I did try to connect using an Ethernet cable. When I went to System Settings -> Networks there was no list of connections and at the top it said "the cable is unplugged".

I found similar questions about problems with wireless connection and one of the answers was to connect with a cable and download a driver, that's why I tried wired connection first.

I also found recommendations to use

sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source

or

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source

as a first step of fixing the problem. When I typed any of these commands I got as response that the package was not found.

after running lspci | grep Network the output is:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

Below I paste the commands I ran and the output

cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a 

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
Linux User 3.8.0-29-generic #42~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 14 16:19:23 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000c]
    Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

iwconfig 

lo        no wireless extensions.

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_iso8859_1          12713  1 
bnep                   18258  2 
rfcomm                 47864  0 
bluetooth             247024  10 bnep,rfcomm
joydev                 17613  0 
parport_pc             28284  0 
ppdev                  17113  0 
snd_hda_codec_idt      71153  1 
uvcvideo               82214  0 
videobuf2_core         40785  1 uvcvideo
b43                   392109  0 
videodev              130053  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
videobuf2_vmalloc      13056  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops       13202  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
mac80211              630977  1 b43
cfg80211              525244  2 b43,mac80211
snd_hda_intel          44339  3 
snd_hda_codec         141716  2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              13668  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm               102477  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_rawmidi            30417  1 snd_seq_midi
coretemp               13596  0 
i915                  620421  3 
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                61930  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
mac_hid                13253  0 
gpio_ich               13526  0 
snd_timer              29989  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
dell_wmi               12681  0 
drm_kms_helper         49597  1 i915
sparse_keymap          13890  1 dell_wmi
snd_seq_device         14497  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
psmouse                97873  0 
dell_laptop            17425  0 
drm                   287564  4 i915,drm_kms_helper
microcode              23017  0 
dcdbas                 14449  1 dell_laptop
serio_raw              13215  0 
lpc_ich                17144  0 
i2c_algo_bit           13564  1 i915
snd                    69533  15 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
bcma                   41244  1 b43
video                  19652  1 i915
soundcore              12680  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         18798  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
wmi                    19256  1 dell_wmi
lp                     17799  0 
parport                46562  3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
ums_realtek            18256  0 
usb_storage            61749  2 ums_realtek
ahci                   25879  2 
libahci                31606  1 ahci
ssb                    57842  1 b43
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  • Your original post is ambiguous... Have you tried connecting to the Internet via an Ethernet cable (and that also failed)? What steps did you follow when you tried bcmwl-kernel-source? Please, edit the question to add this information.
    – edwin
    Jul 13, 2014 at 23:52
  • Also, please run lspci | grep Network in a terminal and add the output to your question.
    – edwin
    Jul 14, 2014 at 0:17

1 Answer 1

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

Download the b43updated.zip file to a usb flash drive then drag and drop the file to your ubuntu desktop. Right-click it and select Extract Here.

Open a terminal and do:

sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/b43
sudo cp Desktop/b43_updated.zip/*  /lib/firmware/b43
sudo modprobe -rv b43 
sudo modprobe -v b43

if it does not come on reboot. Wireless should now be working, it looks like your ethernet card is not even detected.

1
  • This worked perfectly, except for the line "sudo cp Desktop/b43_updated.zip/* /lib/firmware/b43". I had to change it to "sudo cp Desktop/b43_updated/* /lib/firmware/b43".
    – Mike Bell
    Dec 21, 2019 at 18:25

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