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I am using a Dell laptop Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with 4G RAM and wiped Windows Vista off it to replace it with Ubuntu 18.04. I installed the OS tonight and the wifi light went off and no wifi recognition panel appears when I log on (I am typing this on my wifi connected windows PC). When I use an ethernet cable firefox states 'we can't connect to the server at...' so it's like I don't have wired or wifi access on the laptop at all, although it worked before I installed Ubuntu. I tried to update the Broadcom drivers in additional drivers and selecting apply changes didn't work, it wouldn't update at all. So basically - wifi worked on this laptop pre-Ubuntu (eg - yesterday) and now doesn't work at all, nor does wireless. I am a complete noob at linux and my 'restore new life to old laptop' hasn't got off to a great start! Any help appreciated.

    rfkill list - ethernet controller {0200} Broadcom Limited NetLink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1698] (rev 10)
Subsystem: Dell Netlink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [1028:0256]
    Kernel driver in use : tg3
    Kernel modules : tg3
    0c:00.0 Network controller [0280] : Broadcom Limited BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [13e4: 432b} (rev 01)
    Subsystem : Dell Wireless 1510 Wireless -N WLAN Mini-Card [1028: 000d]
    kernel driver in use : b43-pci-bridge
    kernel modules : ssb
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  • Please edit your question and add output of lspci -knn | grep Net -A3; rfkill list terminal command.
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 20:50
  • I don't see the Network controller code. You need to install either firmware-b43-installer, or bcmwl-kernel-source. Both can be installed offline.
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:01
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:03
  • With 18.04 it is a bit more complex to install bcmwl-kernel-source. You need to copy many packages from pool. See askubuntu.com/questions/626642/…
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:07
  • The easiest way is to connect to the internet using your phone.
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:07

1 Answer 1

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Connect to the internet using your phone. You can connect almost any phone by USB and use it as a modem.

Then run in a terminal

sudo apt update
sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

With the 18.04 Ubuntu version it is not very straight forward to install Broadcom drivers offline.

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  • Thanks I've just tried that and got lots of errors back stating E:Failed to fetch archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/d/dkms/dkms etc. (pages of it) Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com' Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
    – Ron Reese
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:20
  • Run sudo apt update first.
    – Pilot6
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:34
  • If you haven't set up USB tethering, and you use Android, there are instructions here. That will give your laptop a temporary internet connection (assuming your phone has one) to download the Wi-Fi driver.
    – luk3yx
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:39
  • Thanks all, the software updater is in overdrive installing updates so I think some form of internet must be working?
    – Ron Reese
    Jun 18, 2018 at 21:52

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