Broadcom Driver Installation

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curlydog

Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by curlydog »

Folks I'm brand new to Linux and having trouble with ethernet and wifi drivers after installing mint xfce on a Dell inspiron laptop.

I have no networking at the moment as no wired or wireless adapters are recognised. I have identified the Broadcom drivers I need and downloaded them as a tar.gz file.

So far I have extracted the files/folders. There are two folders called "src" and "lib" which contain more folders and files. There is also a file called "Makefile" which when viewed looks like some kind of a script.

All of the help I can find refers to running an install file or compiling the binaries. I have no install file and when I try the ./configure command I regularly see, I get an error that there is no such file or directory.

Any pointers would be appreciated.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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JeremyB
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Posts: 13771
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:17 am

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by JeremyB »

Post the result from terminal for

Code: Select all

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
curlydog

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by curlydog »

barbara@barbara-Inspiron-1520 ~/Desktop $ lspci -nnk | grep -ia2 net
Subsystem: Dell 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller [1028:01f1]
Kernel modules: i2c_i801
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [1028:01f1]
Kernel modules: b44
--
Kernel driver in use: r852
Kernel modules: r852
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
Kernel driver in use: wl
JeremyB
Level 21
Level 21
Posts: 13771
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:17 am

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by JeremyB »

You might be able to get wired going again with

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe b44
Somehow you installed the broadcom proprietary wl module that can be installed at least 3 different ways and the installation of this module blacklisted the modules your wired needs

Please post results for

Code: Select all

dpkg -l | grep -i broadcom; dkms status
curlydog

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by curlydog »

JeremyB wrote:You might be able to get wired going again with

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe b44
Somehow you installed the broadcom proprietary wl module that can be installed at least 3 different ways and the installation of this module blacklisted the modules your wired needs

Please post results for

Code: Select all

dpkg -l | grep -i broadcom; dkms status
The

Code: Select all

sudo modprobe b44
doesn't seem to do anything. I get prompted for the user password and then the cursor just moves to the next line and sits there. Nothing happens.

Here's the result of

Code: Select all

dpkg -l | grep -i broadcom; dkms status

Code: Select all

barbara@barbara-Inspiron-1520 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep -i broadcom; dkms status
ii  bcmwl-kernel-source                          6.30.223.248+bdcom-0ubuntu8                amd64        Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source
bcmwl, 6.30.223.248+bdcom, 4.4.0-21-generic, x86_64: installed
ndiswrapper, 1.59, 4.4.0-21-generic, x86_64: installed
virtualbox-guest, 5.0.18, 4.4.0-21-generic, x86_64: installed (original_module exists)
JeremyB
Level 21
Level 21
Posts: 13771
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:17 am

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by JeremyB »

Ok, from the dkms status results it shows bcmwl installed, so lets remove it

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source
Reboot and hopefully the ethernet will work, if it doesn't it is likely blacklisted in another file, to find it use

Code: Select all

grep [[:alnum:]] /etc/modprobe.d/* | grep b44
If ethernet does work install the firmware for wifi with

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
Reboot and wifi should function
curlydog

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by curlydog »

Jeremy B you're a genius.

Wired and wireless both up and running. Once bcmwl removed wired worked and allowed me to run the apt-get to install the wireless drivers.

Thanks for your help.
corcaigher

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by corcaigher »

This worked for me, as well. Thank you.
brokera

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by brokera »

Did everything as indicated in this post. But Wi-Fi never appeared.please help me with Wi-Fi settings.
JeremyB
Level 21
Level 21
Posts: 13771
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:17 am

Re: Broadcom Driver Installation

Post by JeremyB »

Please start a new thread and include the results from the wireless script link in my signature
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