How to Install a Broadcom Wireless Driver

Question

I'm having serious problems installing the Broadcom drivers for Ubuntu. It worked perfectly on my previous version, but now, it is impossible. I'm a user with no advance knowledge in Linux, so I would need clear explanations on make, compile, etc.

Edit: For the command: "lspci | grep Network", I get the following message:

06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

For the command: iwconfig, i get the following:

lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions.

When i follow the following steps (from the above link), there are a NO error message at all:

• open the 'Synaptic Package Manager' and search for bcm

• uninstall the bcm-kernel-source package

• make sure that the firmware-b43-installer and the b43-fwcutter packages are installed

• type into terminal:

  cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep '8180|acx|at76|ath|b43|bcm|CX|eth|ipw|irmware|isl|lbtf|orinoco|ndiswrapper|NPE|p54|prism|rtl|rt2|rt3|rt6|rt7|witch|wl'
  

• (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

• then save the file (I was getting error messages in the terminal about not being able to save, but it actually did save properly).

• reboot 'End of procedure'

Before (not ubuntu 11.04), if i wanted to connect wireles, i just went to the icon at the upper side of the screen, click, showed ALL the wireless network available, and done.

Now, the only options i see are:

• Wired Network
• Auto Eth0
• Disconnect
• VPN
• Enable networking
• Connection information
• Edit connection.

lspci -vnn | grep Network showed:

Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] 

hope above info is enough for your help.

Answer 1

I had the same problem and found the solution. Run the following command and reboot the machine. This worked for me.

echo 'options acer_wmi wireless=1' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/acer_wmi.conf

Answer 2

The procedure from post 5 by Wahyaohni worked for me, without removing the STA driver as it was automatically disabled when I did step 2, Uninstall the bcm-kernel-source package using Synaptic.

I have Compaq Presario V3000 with Broadcom bcm4311 driver on 11.04 (Natty Narwhal. Good luck with yours!!

Answer 3

I have a HP Pavilion dv6000. I had this issue while installing Ubuntu 11.1.

This post helped me a lot:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#b43_-_No_Internet_access

Specially when You don't have wired network available on Your laptop. All You need is a pendrive with ubuntu 11.1 and two files which You can download from a computer with internet connection (copy them to Your pendrive):

1. http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
2. http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

Follow the instructions on the site I mention above and don't forget to restart Your computer (I skipped step 4 - it worked after the restart).

Answer 4

Mine is Compaq V3000 Laptop.

If you installed Broadcom STA Wireless driver through additional driver section, please remove the same.

Go to terminal and type

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source 
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

Then restart the machine and enable wireless.

Answer 5

For people having a Dell Vostro 1320 (or similar) and experiencing a notification in the wireless menu about a turned off wireless, this is what helped me.

The dell_laptop module was interfering with rfkill and telling it incorrectly that the hardware switch is off. This can be fixed by blacklisting the dell_laptop module. Open the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf with your favorite editor with superuser permissions, e.g. press ALT+F2 and type

gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

or in a Terminal:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf 

At the end of the file ad the following like (preferably with a comment):

# dell_laptop communicates wrong hw switch state to rfkill 
blacklist dell_laptop 

Don't forget to save the file. After blacklisting the module this way it will not be loaded during future system startups. Reboot your machine. Wireless should work now.

reference: http://launchpad.net/bugs/701259

Answer 6

I had the same problem. b43 and bcmwl didn't work for me. b43 worked but the speed was always below 10kBps.

The open source bcma driver works fine.

sudo rmmod wl
sudo modprobe bcma
sudo reboot

This did the trick for me.

Answer 7

There is a much easier way of solving this problem. The trick is the order in which you install proprietary drivers. The Broadcom driver MUST be installed FIRST before any others.

Example I have a HP TX2-1050ED with Broadcom B43 and ATI Raedon graphics.

I enabled the ATI Raedon driver first then the Broadcom driver this lead to the errors mentioned above.

When I uninstalled the ATI driver then installed the Broadcom driver and reboot. I had wireless. Then I installed the ATI driver and now both work.

This is actually a bug in Jockey as Jockey should resolve the driver conflict for you.

So in short. Broadcom First, then other drivers.

Answer 8

Works for me with simple

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer 

on Kubuntu 12.04 Lenovo G550.

After reboot works perfectly.

Answer 9

SOME Broadcom wireless drivers can be installed opening a terminal and running

  sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

Then enter your password and Y when asked.

Answer 10

Special Case: BCM43142 & AR8161 on Dell Vostro 3460

The Intel4000 graphic in my case needs at least 3.6 Kernel (For 64bit: 1,2,3,4). There the needed kernel headers for the broadcom adapter are included. But the problem is that before installing the kernel you need to install the build-essential and this is differing between Ubuntu release versions and window managers. You also need to install the dkms if not already available, too, what is a bit tricky without internet connection. So here comes a hint for other noobs like me that I grabbed from here:

• Install your ...buntu of choice (Mint works also) on a machine where you can access internet out-of-box (e.g. on USB and visit a good, old friend with some easter eggs ;)

• there you sudo apt-get install build-essential dkms

• go to /var/cache/apt/archives (At this location apt automatically stores all your installed packages per default.) Now copy all deb's into a folder, e.g. called "BUILD-ESSE" on your USB stick.

• now you easily can copy this folder on your Vostro and install those debs via sudo dpkg -i BUILD-ESSE/*.deb