I'm an avid reader here and have found an answer to previous problems here repeatedly, now I have
finally decided to actually join and tell you my story about my experience with Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, on a MacBook 2009 early model no less (slightly advanced people think: ‘oh oh.. problems ahead), and they’re right. But hey, I like a challenge so here goes:
This being a few of my first things I do within Linux (only have only basic knowledge of Linux so far), I decided to write this, both as a documentation for myself as for other people having the same transtional problems, and as a bit of entertainment .
Now, at this moment my laptop is running a dual boot of Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and Windows 7, that's right, no mac partition anymore (note1: yeah, I found out this would indeed bite me in the rear a few hours later today, but oh well).
Okay, so first up, what I did was running all the updates; quite simple, just run the next bit a few times, until it's up to date:
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User@Laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get update
(give your password)
User@Laptop ~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade
Next, the wireless driver. I have had a few problems with this one in the past, so I had learned how to "make" a new wireless driver. What are those steps you say, well I'll even write them down:
Since it's a macbook, it's using a Broadcom driver. And there is an official download available for that (which you can download using another system and usb devices, or using a network cable. I did the latter).
I downloaded the 64-bit driver and readme files here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
The readme was very useful actually, so I was pleased with that, however it contained a whole lot more information than I needed, so here is a shrunk down version;
First of all you create a directory, change into that directory and then untar the file. There are 2 easy ways to untar, either you type in "tar xzf " and follow up with the '
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User@Laptop ~ $ mkdir hybrid_wl
User@Laptop ~ $ cd hybrid_wl
User@Laptop ~ $ tar xzf 'home/User/Desktop/hybrid-v35_64-nodebug-pcoem-portsrc.tar.gz'
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User@Laptop ~ $ make
Since I have a fresh install, the following needs to be done. Remove any broadcom drivers, and "blacklist" them, the "ls" rule will display all items, the "rmmod" will remove them:
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User@Laptop ~ $ lsmod | grep "brcmsmac\|b43\|ssb\|bcma\|wl"
User@Laptop ~ $ rmmod b43
User@Laptop ~ $ rmmod brcmsmac
User@Laptop ~ $ rmmod ssb
User@Laptop ~ $ rmmod bcma
User@Laptop ~ $ wl
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User@Laptop ~ $ echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
User@Laptop ~ $ echo "blacklist bcma" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
User@Laptop ~ $ echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
User@Laptop ~ $ echo "blacklist brcmsmac" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
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User@Laptop ~ $ modprobe lib80211
User@Laptop ~ $ modprobe cfg80211
User@Laptop ~ $ insmod wl.ko
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User@Laptop ~ $ uname -r
User@Laptop ~ $ cp wl.ko /lib/modules/[text above]/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
User@Laptop ~ $ depmod -a
User@Laptop ~ $ echo modprobe wl >> etc/rc.local