NO Wireless, beating my head against the Linux wall....

[Matt832]

Sorry if this comes off as a bit of a rant, but I want to like Linux, I really like everything I've seen in this distro. Mint feels familiar and friendly, I guess it's because it's most like the other OSs I've used, and here is the but... for a newbie things are just not obvious. Building and working with computers for 20 years, have tried to make the jump to Linux any number of times but for someone coming from an MS environment things are not familiar. With MS things for me are intuitive, it's rare for me to have to pick up a book or do a search to do something, and I've done some pretty arcane stuff to my windows systems.

OK issue. Got an older laptop, Compaq V3019US. It uses a Broadcom 4311 network adapter. I have spent 6-8 hours over 3 days trying to get it to work. Nothing. I enabled the drivers for it and the NVIDIA display, tried RFkill, 3 devices show up, a generic Bluetooth, an HP wireless adapter and an HP Bluetooth adapter. I'm using a BT mouse and it works fine. I'm not seeing a generic Wireless adapter.

Should this not be simple and straight forward? I was running a Win 8 pre release that expired, opted out of the $39 deal, tried 4 or 5 versions of Linux before settling on Mint 14. Initially loaded it on a USB stick and ran it on another of my laptops and it worked perfectly from the first boot, Wifi and all. Installed in on the Compaq and other than the wireless, and being a bit laggy it's fine. Basically my long term goal is to migrate much if not all my systems to Linux, I'm off to a poor start. Open to suggestions - thanks.

[anandrkris]

See if the below links help you in fixing the issue.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/38327/how-can-i-get-broadcom-bcm4311-wireless-working
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=12635&hilit=wl_apsta.o.lzma.tar.gz
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/597

Below links help in searching for linux related topics. I find them very useful to solve linux related issues.

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=017607476515012185699:b_owgx6xyi0
http://home.windstream.net/joelwest/

[Matt832]

Thanks...

Tried all your suggestions, still no luck.

[Matt832]

Not sure what I did but I can get wireless working if I enter sudo modprobe b43 in a termanl window. Open to suggestions how to get it to work automatically...

[Pierre]

I've got a similar thing with Mint 13 not recognising my usb 3g mdm,
but a script file - will kick_start it into working.
- I could fiddle with it, until I fix that, but instead I just keep using the script.
slack - I know - but it does the job . .

[AlbertP]

Please connect to wired internet and install firmware-b43-installer from Software Manager.

[Matt832]

OK, got it. From a suggestion on another forum I added b43 to the end of /etc/modules .

[AlbertP]

Adding b43 can be useful if you previously messed up your wireless by trying too many different suggestions and how-to's. Usually you don't need it. Installing firmware-b43-installer should be sufficient to get a Broadcom 4311 working on a clean system.

[Matt832]

Hmm, I did a clean install several times and running firmware-b43-installer was one of the first things I did - one of the times. At this point I'm going to settle in and play with the system and get a better feel of Mint. Do a little reading on Linux and explore.

[flyboy1565]

After b43 is installed, try going to software manager, other drivers and selecting the other option than your current selection. This is what I did for my hp

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

[AlbertP]

@ Matt832: Could you run inxi -N and rfkill list in terminal and post the output?

[Matt832]

sorry for the delay.

Running inxl -N ---

# inxi -N
Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN driver: b43-pci-bridge
Card-2: NVIDIA MCP51 Ethernet Controller driver: forcedeth


Running rfkill-----
# rfkill list
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
5: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

The phy0: Wireless card was not there prior to running b43 to the end of /etc/modules.

[vsilverdore]

You could try checking etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

The line:

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
blacklist bcm43xx

should be edited to read:

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
# blacklist bcm43xx

That will allow the Broadcom wireless driver to load on startup

-Vsilverdore

[extensanewbie]

I had a similar problem with bcm4311. Tried to install b43 with no luck and tried a couple other things too. Eventually found this post and it worked like a charm for me.
http://linuxg.net/how-to-fix-broadcom-b ... inux-mint/

"To fix your wireless problem, this is what you have to do:

Remove the default driver:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

Install a the Linux Firmware nonfree drivers:

$ sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

Load the b43 module:

$ sudo modprobe b43

Share and Enjoy"

I hope this helps a few of you out because I just spent hours before I found this simple solution.

[AlbertP]

blacklist bcm43xx

should be edited to read:
(...)
# blacklist bcm43xx

That will allow the Broadcom wireless driver to load on startup

@ vsilverdore: bcm43xx is a prehistoric driver that has not been part of Mint anymore for years. Un-blacklisting it does not help. The note above it tells you that you're supposed to use b43 and/or ssb right now.