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I am brand new to Ubuntu and Linux though I've had some computer experience on other platforms some years back. I recently wiped Windows Vista off of an old Dell Inspiron Laptop that I don't use anymore and installed Ubuntu 14.04.3 Desktop (32-bit) on it. If I can get this running smoothly, I intend to convert my daily working laptop as well. The problem is that Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS is not recognizing my wireless (it's a Broadcom 1390 that came with the old Dell.) I have seen multiple other questions posted about this and have tried the solutions suggested on about 10 of them but none have worked (some of the terminal commands return errors for out of date links, software no longer present in my version, etc.)
Some of the links did reference a script to gather networking information on the system so that others can advise me how to locate and install the correct device drivers for my mini-PCI wireless card. (Please note that I am posting this with the old laptop with a direct Ethernet cable to my router. I will soon need to switch to wifi, hence this request.) I will copy the contents of the wireless-info.txt here: *

########## wireless info START ##########

Report from: 26 Sep 2015 16:46 PDT -0700

Booted last: 26 Sep 2015 15:47 PDT -0700

Script from: 14 Jul 2015 17:04 UTC +0000

##### release ###########################

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty

##### kernel ############################

Linux 3.19.0-28-generic #30~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 1 09:33:32 UTC 2015 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

Parameters: ro, quiet, splash, vt.handoff=7

##### desktop ###########################

Ubuntu

##### lspci #############################

09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1713] (rev 02)
    Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 1420 [1028:01f3]
    Kernel driver in use: tg3

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
    Kernel driver in use: wl

##### lsusb #############################

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. OV2640 Webcam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

##### PCMCIA card info ##################

##### rfkill ############################

##### lsmod #############################

dell_wmi               16384  0 
sparse_keymap          16384  1 dell_wmi
dell_laptop            16384  0 
dcdbas                 16384  1 dell_laptop
wl                   6148096  1 
cfg80211              450560  1 wl
wmi                    20480  1 dell_wmi

##### interfaces ########################

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

##### ifconfig ##########################

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr <MAC 'eth0' [IF]>  
          inet addr:192.168.1.117  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::<IP6 'eth0' [IF]>/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:29320 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:18707 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:35350100 (35.3 MB)  TX bytes:2063099 (2.0 MB)
          Interrupt:17 

##### iwconfig ##########################

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

##### route #############################

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     1      0        0 eth0

##### resolv.conf #######################

nameserver 127.0.1.1

##### network managers ##################

Installed:

    NetworkManager

Running:

root       748     1  0 15:46 ?        00:00:00 NetworkManager

##### NetworkManager info ###############

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected (global)

- Device: eth0  [Wired connection 1] -------------------------------------------
  Type:              Wired
  Driver:            tg3
  State:             connected
  Default:           yes
  HW Address:        <MAC 'eth0' [IF]>

  Capabilities:
    Carrier Detect:  yes
    Speed:           100 Mb/s

  Wired Properties
    Carrier:         on

  IPv4 Settings:
    Address:         192.168.1.117
    Prefix:          24 (255.255.255.0)
    Gateway:         192.168.1.1

    DNS:             192.168.0.1
    DNS:             192.168.1.1

##### NetworkManager.state ##############

[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true
WimaxEnabled=true

##### NetworkManager.conf ###############

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile,ofono
dns=dnsmasq

[ifupdown]
managed=false

##### NetworkManager profiles ###########

[[/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/Wi-Fi connection 1]] (600 root)
[connection] id=Wi-Fi connection 1 | type=802-11-wireless
[802-11-wireless] ssid=Beldin76
[ipv4] method=auto
[ipv6] method=auto

##### iw reg get ########################

Region: America/Los_Angeles (based on set time zone)

country 00:
    (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (3, 20)
    (2457 - 2482 @ 40), (3, 20), PASSIVE-SCAN, NO-IBSS
    (2474 - 2494 @ 20), (3, 20), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN, NO-IBSS
    (5170 - 5250 @ 40), (3, 20), PASSIVE-SCAN, NO-IBSS
    (5735 - 5835 @ 40), (3, 20), PASSIVE-SCAN, NO-IBSS

##### iwlist channels ###################

lo        no frequency information.

eth0      no frequency information.

##### iwlist scan #######################

lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

##### module infos ######################

modinfo: ERROR: Module wl not found.
[wl]

[cfg80211]
filename:       /lib/modules/3.19.0-28-generic/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko
description:    wireless configuration support
license:        GPL
author:         Johannes Berg
srcversion:     F28307769349A31F4B24FC2
depends:        
intree:         Y
vermagic:       3.19.0-28-generic SMP mod_unload modversions 686 
signer:         Magrathea: Glacier signing key
sig_key:        33:8B:B9:17:DF:9C:4F:70:3C:FC:37:87:18:3A:7E:6D:F3:BA:BD:3E
sig_hashalgo:   sha512
parm:           ieee80211_regdom:IEEE 802.11 regulatory domain code (charp)
parm:           cfg80211_disable_40mhz_24ghz:Disable 40MHz support in the 2.4GHz band (bool)

##### module parameters #################

[cfg80211]
cfg80211_disable_40mhz_24ghz: N
ieee80211_regdom: 00

##### /etc/modules ######################

lp

##### modprobe options ##################

[/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf]
blacklist ath_pci

[/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf]
blacklist evbug
blacklist usbmouse
blacklist usbkbd
blacklist eepro100
blacklist de4x5
blacklist eth1394
blacklist snd_intel8x0m
blacklist snd_aw2
blacklist i2c_i801
blacklist prism54
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist garmin_gps
blacklist asus_acpi
blacklist snd_pcsp
blacklist pcspkr
blacklist amd76x_edac

[/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rare-network.conf]
alias net-pf-3 off
alias net-pf-6 off
alias net-pf-9 off
alias net-pf-11 off
alias net-pf-12 off
alias net-pf-19 off
alias net-pf-21 off
alias net-pf-36 off

[/etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf]
remove iwlwifi \
(/sbin/lsmod | grep -o -e ^iwlmvm -e ^iwldvm -e ^iwlwifi | xargs /sbin/rmmod) \
&& /sbin/modprobe -r mac80211

[/etc/modprobe.d/mlx4.conf]
softdep mlx4_core post: mlx4_en

##### rc.local ##########################

exit 0

##### pm-utils ##########################

##### udev rules ########################

[/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules]
# PCI device 0x14e4:0x1713 (tg3)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="<MAC 'eth0' [IF]>", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

##### dmesg #############################

[   16.679573]  [<f9bcd7f1>] wl_pci_probe+0x371/0x730 [wl]
[   16.680005]  [<f8b1c073>] wl_module_init+0x73/0x1000 [wl]
[   16.680005] EIP: [<f9bd52a1>] wdev_priv.part.9+0x3/0x5 [wl] SS:ESP 0068:f47a9bac

########## wireless info END ############

*

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1 Answer 1

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After additional research, I have found a solution that worked for me derived from the most popular answer (by Luis Alvarado) to this question on installing Broadcom wireless drivers.

Specifically, I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 14.04.3 Desktop to undo any errors in my past unsuccessful attempts to get my wireless working. Then I ran the following code in terminal as recommended in Step 1:

lspci -nn -d 14e4:  

This told me that the PCI ID of my wireless card was [14e4:4311] (rev 01). Looking in the Broadcom wireless table in step 3, I saw that I would need firmware-b43-installer. Then in terminal, I ran:

sudo apt-get update  

followed by:

sudo update-pciids

as recommended in Step 2. I then found by trial and error that I had to run the following in terminal:

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source  

as suggested at the end of Step 1 even though I had not manually installed the bcmwl-kernel-source package.
I then ran the following in terminal from Step 3:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer  

and afterward shut down the computer and unplugged the Ethernet cable from the laptop. After powering up the laptop and logging into Ubuntu, the network menu detected wireless networks and I was able to select my own, and login to it successfully.

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