No wireless for BCM4321 Linksys WPC300N V1

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
Locked
taytong888

No wireless for BCM4321 Linksys WPC300N V1

Post by taytong888 »

Hello,

I just installed LMDE201204 Mate/Cinnamon 32bit on my laptop which has a built-in miniPCIe Atheros AR-5001 wireless G adapter (ath5k driver). Since I want to use wireless N, I installed an external PCMCIA card called Linksys WPC300N v1. I have Windows and Ubuntu on this laptop and Broadcom STA (i.e. wl) wireless driver which works fine for wireless N connections.

With LMDE201204, Broadcom STA doesn't seem to work, so I installed b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer via Software Manager. When finished, I tried typing:

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe b43
and after reboot, the screen says to the effect that module modprobe is not found in unix...

Also, the terminal shows;

Code: Select all

#lspci -nnk

0a:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4329] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Linksys WPC300N v1 Wireless-N Notebook Adapter [1737:0058]
I keep seeing a wireless authentication window and another one to authorize modification of network settings. Nothing happens after I enter my passwords in these two.

I would very much appreciate your help.
:(
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
taytong888

Re: No wireless for BCM4321 Linksys WPC300N V1

Post by taytong888 »

Update:
First of all, I removed the built-in wireless G miniPCIe adapter card, to prevent interference with configuring wireless N connection, since blacklisting ath and ath5k didn't work.

I suspected Network Manager has issues with setting static addresses in wireless connections. Based on the post by altair4 called "Network-Manager issues" dated Dec. 4, 2011, I did the following:

Code: Select all

gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
Deleted all, except the first 2 lines as in the following:

Code: Select all

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
Saved the file and closed.

I then purged broadcom-sta-common, b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer and reinstalled the latter two:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge broadcom-sta-common b43-fwcutter  firmware-b43-installer

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter  firmware-b43-installer
After this I tried to configure wireless connection in NM, but it was difficult to do so because either nothing happens or the fields were not available. Eventually I managed to configure. Signal strength was only 1 Mbps.

Then wireless connection was lost forever.

Now I got solid pilot light on the adapter card for LINK and POWER for the first time ever, but I keep getting authentication prompts for wireless network connection secrets and permission to change network settings. I think NM still has a long way to go until the release of LMDE final edition. By the way, I also tried WICD but it does not work for PPPOE wireless connection yet.

Any suggestions?

:(
taytong888

Re: No wireless for BCM4321 Linksys WPC300N V1

Post by taytong888 »

Hello,

I gave up on LMDE. In LMDE, I installed broadcom-sta-common which is the only one available, via synaptic. Under lspci -nnk, the screen shows only the Broadcom BCM 4321 wireless b/g/n adapter but not kernel driver wl. If I purge wl and replace it with firmware-b43-installer, the screen shows b43-pci-bridge as kernel driver in use and the PCMCIA card shows 2 solid pilot lights but no wireless. For some reasons Network Manager with static IP cannot send wireless secret passphrase to the system, so wireless authentication requests keep popping up with either wl or b43 installed.

Installed Linux Mint 12, which detects and suggests installation of proprietary driver Broadcom STA (i.e. wl). Wireless connection is established!

:P
Locked

Return to “LMDE Archive”