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I am not getting my wireless network adapter (wlan0) to show in the output of ifconfig, but the card adapter name is showing in the output of sudo lshw -c network. I have seen other posts which indicate that a common cause of this is that the card is hard blocked, which is visible through the use of the tool rfkill.

I feel like there logically should be a way to unblock the hardware without having to first install rfkill, as the hardware became blocked without the package being installed in the first place.

I understand that using rfkill is the most straightforward solution, but I am looking for the alternative more complex / lower-level approach to removing the hard-block on my wireless adapter.

Note: Please correct me if this is not possible without rfkill.

Edit: I have since purchased a different PCI wireless adapter, thinking it may work "out-of-the-box", but it is also not appearing on an ifconfig. My output of sudo lshw -c network is now as follows:

*-network:0
description: Network controller
product: BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless Lan Controller
vendor Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 8
bus info: pci@0000:03:08.0
version: 02
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=32
resources: irq:16 memory:fddfc000-fddfdfff
*-network: 1 UNCLAIMED
description: Ethernet controller
product: 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless
vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
physical id: 9
bus info: pci@0000:03:09.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=32
resources: memory:ffdde0000-fddeffff memory:fddd0000-fdddffff

#0 is the adapter I originally was trying to get working when I opened this post, and #1 is the "new" one.

I noticed the following interesting message when booting up, and searched for it using dmesg | grep firmware:

... b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
... b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
... b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
... b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
... b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version.  Please carefully read all instructions on this website.

So, it would appear that I need this firmware to get the b43 working... but why exactly do I need this? No tell-tale messages regarding the other adapter either...

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  • Did lshw -c network show Network Unclaimed or Network Disabled? Please post the output of lshw -c network in an edit of your question
    – Jeremy31
    Mar 7, 2015 at 10:41
  • Also add: dmesg | grep b43. Thanks and welcome to askubuntu.
    – chili555
    Mar 8, 2015 at 1:32
  • You could also post output of lspci or lsusb.
    – Anders
    Mar 8, 2015 at 2:54

2 Answers 2

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The other adapter is difficult to impossible to get working. I suggest you remove it.

As for the Broadcom, with a temporary working internet connection, open a terminal and do:

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

Reboot and your wireless should be working. I believe your issue was firmware all along, not rfkill.

You need to install the firmware separately because it is proprietary and not open source so isn't included on the Ubuntu install media.

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  • Or install the package linux-nonfree-firmware (or something like that). One could also try iwlist(8) to see all wireless devices.
    – Anders
    Mar 8, 2015 at 2:52
  • What exactly is "firmware" and why do I really need it? I thought if the OS recognized that the adapter existed, tools like iwconfig and the like are able to communicate with the adapter via explicit commands?
    – papiro
    Mar 8, 2015 at 17:38
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    In this context, firmware is the file that is required to get the generic driver, b43 in your case, and the hardware, BCM4318 in your case, to actually work. Broadcom do not release the details as open source, so we must download and install the firmware files separately. Many drivers require firmware including Intel's iwlwifi, Realtek's rt2800pci and rt2800usb and many more. The OS may "recognize" the hardware, like your Marvell above and have no driver, or it may have a driver and no firmware like your Broadcom or it may have a driver that doesn't require firmware and work immediately.
    – chili555
    Mar 8, 2015 at 17:52
  • @papiro Did you install the firmware? Is everything working as expected? If my answer has been helpful, please accept it.
    – chili555
    Mar 9, 2015 at 15:42
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    @papiro: firmware is like on-board BIOS that has to be loaded every time. Broadcom adapters contain a DSP chip without EEPROM/SDRAM so it loses it's "BIOS" every time it's powered down so it needs to be reloaded every time as well.
    – Fabby
    Mar 12, 2015 at 11:55
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you can download rfkill from here https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/21.10/ubuntu-updates-main-amd64/rfkill_2.36.1-8ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb.html

then transfere it by usp dirve

and install manually

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