[SOLVED] Wireless option gone after enabling Broadcom STA

[c0dehunter]

I just installed Mint 12. I was given an option to install restricted driver Broadcom STA Wireless and I installed it and rebooted (before there was Wireless option but it said "Firmware missing " or something like that. Anyway, after reboot, I can't see Wireless option anywhere, only "Wired" (in ?Network manager?).

I've ran mintWifi.py:

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-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 14e4:4311 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:26:18:2f:26:10 
          inet6 addr: fe80::226:18ff:fe2f:2610/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:48 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:143 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:18392 (18.3 KB)  TX bytes:19417 (19.4 KB)
          Interrupt:43 Base address:0x6000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:240 (240.0 B)  TX bytes:240 (240.0 B)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached


Please help.

[TBABill]

The STA does not work properly for the BCM4311 in Mint 11 or 12...may be a firmware issue, but not certain. But the b43 doesn't normally come up as an option so users usually

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

then to activate it without logging out or restarting, just

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sudo modprobe -r b43 wl

then

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sudo modprobe b43

If upon restart it is not persistent (but works with sudo modprobe b43), just

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gksudo gedit /etc/modules

and add "b43" without quotes to the end of the list. That activates the module each time you log in or restart.

Since you have the STA driver you may also need to check that the module for it (wl) is blacklisted so it will not be enabled on restarts by

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

and add the following to the end of the list

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blacklist wl

[c0dehunter]

Thank you, this worked.

I'm still curious though why have developers chosen to show me this dialog in which it says that my Broadcom 4311 IS supported by STA driver and it even says "Tested by Mint developers team". How new-user friendly is that?

[TBABill]

I completely agree. It's a problem that surfaced in Ubuntu 11.04 and has not yet been corrected. I have no idea why the devs have not disabled the functionality since it does not work for that card, in addition to it not offering the b43 option for a card it very well supports. It's nice that there's a workaround, but new users would never know about it without digging around to find it.

I'm with you in your thoughts about it, just unsure why it is broken and just left broken instead of disabled until fixed. Particularly where it states "tested" when obviously it is not. However, because it is a proprietary driver the devs can't do anything about the driver itself so they probably left it alone and lay the blame on Broadcom, unless it is a packaging issue rather than driver issue. Not sure there.

[c0dehunter]

I completely agree. Will try to contact devs about it on Bugzilla if this hasn't been yet reported.

[AlbertP]

The STA driver works fine on Mint 11 on my father's laptop with Broadcom BCM4322. The Ubuntu developers don't have the resources to try every driver package on every hardware type supported by it. And the STA driver supports, or at least should support, 18 cards.

[TBABill]

Very true. Works perfectly on my BCM4312. But it's inability to support the BCM4311 began in Ubuntu 11.04 and was well known before Mint 11 released...that's where I question it. Why wasn't it reconfigured in Mint since Ubuntu missed it but it was a hot topic on Ubuntu forums even during alpha/beta.

[AlbertP]

The driver program comes right from Ubuntu - Mint does currently not replace Ubuntu packages by their own versions. But surely this would be a very good idea.

I think Clem does not have time for it.

[bmike1]

My issue is a bit different. On a laptop I have installed mint12.Unfortunately, when I load Mint the wifi does not come on. This is the fourth or fifth time I've installed the operating system on this laptop.... all of the previous times it was automatically detected and worked. I've been fighting with this stupid thing because in all the other installs the kernel (3.0.0) caused it to crash when it was on battery power. I know this because the first time I installed it I updated the kernel to 3.1.4 and the crashes stopped. I then decided I wanted the 64bit version of mint but it slowed the computer noticably. So I wereinstalled the 32 bit o/s but could never get the kernel to install correctly. The time before the current incarnation I could only boot it into text mode with the 3.1.4 but could boot to GUI in the 3.0.0 but it would panic after about 15 minutes. (viewtopic.php?f=49&t=87991&p=507789#p507789) The laptop has been up over 50 minutes now with no panic. I think that I am exchanging one problem (the panic) with another (no wifi). I think it will be easier to fix the wifi so we'll go with this.

This is what happens with your instructions
I ran:

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

without any errors but when I ran

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sudo modprobe -r b43 wl

then

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sudo modprobe b43

it responds

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FATAL: Module wl not found

[I tried wl (lower L), wI (capital i), and w1 (even tried w| <pipe>)]

am I doing something wrong?

Let me know if you think I should start another thread.

[AlbertP]

You aren't doing something wrong. It just can't unload the wl (aka STA) driver because it isn't installed. And you don't need to install the driver when the B43 driver works for you.

[bmike1]

well, I see the wifi does not work with only the b43 module so I'll apt-get the wl nodule and we'll see if it works with that.
....
Hmmmmmm.... I guess not. What can I do now?

[AlbertP]

Which Broadcom chip do you have, bmike1?
You can check it with:

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lspci -nn | grep 14e4

[bmike1]

It returned empty. Nothing showed.
I'm beginning to think I got a bad install.

[AlbertP]

You'd better open a new topic as this one is marked as solved.

Make sure your wifi card is a Broadcom one - you can see it with inxi -N. But please do so in a new topic.

[bmike1]

will do!

[juanjo]

Finally!!!!
I didn't even have to reboot my computer.
I had tried a lot to activate my wireless connection, I was even a little bit sad because I wanted linux mint 12, i didn't like the 11. I'm an user of Ubuntu 10.10, cause in 11.10 I had this same problem, guess I didn't try to solve it .
But finally it works!, my wireless is a BCM4311 and the steps I followed were the @TBABill
When I installed the Mint 12, I tried to activate the driver as usual, Menu>System Tools>Additional Drivers, then reboot, anyway it didn't work.
So I tried doing this, before doing anything else:

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

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sudo modprobe -r b43 wl

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sudo modprobe b43

That was the solution, I didn't even have to reboot my computer.
Thanks a bunch!!!

[AlbertP]

Make sure it is still working after a reboot. If it isn't, you might have to uninstall Broadcom's STA driver as you are now using B43.

[juanjo]

Hey, I found out that after a reboot, the solution was no longer active, so I tried at first

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sudo modprobe b43

again, and it worked, but it is something that must be done each time I turn the computer on. Hence, I looked for a solution in http://linuxman.blogsome.com/2011/04/29/problema-con-las-tarjetas-broadcom-bcm43xx-en-ubuntu-1104/#ixzz1gST788HK (is in spanish) and here I bring it:

First, in the terminal:

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$sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

The last instruction, opens a file in gedit, we have to edit the file like this:

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#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

sudo modprobe b43

exit 0

Notice that the only difference is the

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sudo modprobe b43

just before

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exit 0

This is it, we have wireless

[AlbertP]

I think the STA driver's file in /etc/modprobe.d is still there - with that file the STA driver prevents B43 from loading. I'm not sure about the filename, but I think it contains something like broadcom-wl or bcmwl.

[iHateApple]

Thanks so much, TBABill. I've been trying to fix my wireless for weeks.