No wifi or ethernet

[mrnjon]

I just installed LMDE on to a dell inspiron 1520 but I am not getting any wifi or ethernet connection. I have gone into the F2 and F12 boot menus but I am unable to locate a disable secure boot option which is one of the suggested fixes.

My details are:

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System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-17-686 arch: i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon v: 5.8.4
    tk: GTK v: 3.24.38 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: LMDE 6 Faye base: Debian 12.1 bookworm
Machine:
  Type: Portable System: Dell product: Inspiron 1520 v: N/A serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 8 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0KY768 serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell v: A04 date: 11/05/2007
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 44.9 Wh (89.3%) condition: 50.3/57.7 Wh (87.2%) volts: 12.5 min: 11.1
    model: SMP DELL NR2187 serial: <filter> status: charging
  Device-1: apple_mfi_fastcharge model: N/A serial: N/A charge: N/A status: N/A
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Pentium Dual T2310 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Core2 Merom rev: D
    cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1463 min/max: 800/1467 cores: 1: 1463 2: 1463 bogomips: 5850
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA G86M [GeForce 8400M GS] vendor: Dell driver: nouveau v: kernel arch: Tesla pcie:
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: LVDS-1 empty: VGA-1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0427
    temp: 52.0 C
  Device-2: OmniVision OV2640 Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-6:2 chip-ID: 05a9:2640
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: nouveau gpu: nouveau display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x800 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: AU Optronics 0x2274 res: 1280x800 dpi: 98 diag: 390mm (15.4")
  API: OpenGL v: 3.3 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: NV86 direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801H HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
    chip-ID: 8086:284b
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-17-686 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX vendor: Dell driver: N/A port: N/A bus-ID: 03:00.0
    chip-ID: 14e4:170c
  Device-2: Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN vendor: Dell Wireless 1390 driver: N/A pcie:
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 0c:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4311
  IF-ID-1: enx463583411f1e state: up speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 8.45 GiB (0.9%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MQ01ABD100 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 911.97 GiB used: 8.45 GiB (0.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 3.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda1
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Device-1: 3-1:3 info: Apple iPhone 5/5C/5S/6/SE/7/8/X/XR type: Still Imaging
    driver: ipheth,usbfs rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 05ac:12a8
  Device-2: 3-6:2 info: OmniVision OV2640 Webcam type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 05a9:2640
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001
  Hub-5: 5-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001
  Hub-6: 6-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001
  Hub-7: 7-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0001
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: N/A sodimm: SODIMM C gpu: nouveau temp: 52.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2126
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb https: //mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/sites/linuxmint.com/packages faye main upstream import backport
    2: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    3: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    4: deb http: //security.debian.org/ bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    5: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Info:
  Processes: 198 Uptime: 48m Memory: 3.7 GiB used: 1.65 GiB (44.6%) Init: systemd v: 252
  target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12 Client: Unknown
  python3.11 client inxi: 3.3.26

Thanks in advance

[Bertium]

You told that you have a 32 Bit system but a 64 Bit CPU. What about a 64 Bit LMDE6?

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System:
Kernel: 6.1.0-17-686 arch: i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon v: 5.8.4
tk: GTK v: 3.24.38 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: LMDE 6 Faye base: Debian 12.1 bookworm
  ...
  
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Pentium Dual T2310 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Core2 Merom rev: D

[jwiz]

Since you have no internet you would have to pull the the 'broadcom-sta-common' and 'broadcom-sta-dkms' .deb packages from the Debian 12 Bookworm non-free repository on another system and then manually install both packages and restart your computer.
The packages are arch-independent, so you dont have to worry about a 32/64bit system.

[mrnjon]

Being a 2007 machine, I assumed it was 32 bit so 64 bit may be the solution. But first, I actually have access to the internet via tethered phone so can you elaborate please how I go about "pulling the the 'broadcom-sta-common' and 'broadcom-sta-dkms' .deb packages from the Debian 12 Bookworm non-free repository" as I don't know how to do this. Do I use terminal or Synaptic or some other method? Many thanks to you both.

[JeremyB]

You need to uninstall any Broadcom proprietary driver and install firmware-b43-installer
You may be able to get ethernet with the command in terminal

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sudo modprobe b44

[jwiz]

Being a 2007 machine, I assumed it was 32 bit so 64 bit may be the solution. But first, I actually have access to the internet via tethered phone so can you elaborate please how I go about "pulling the the 'broadcom-sta-common' and 'broadcom-sta-dkms' .deb packages from the Debian 12 Bookworm non-free repository" as I don't know how to do this. Do I use terminal or Synaptic or some other method? Many thanks to you both.

If you have internet access, just do a 'sudo apt install ...' for said packages, but maybe installing the firmware-b43-installer' package will already suffice, as JeremyB pointed out n his posting.

[mrnjon]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I was able to get the ethernet working but unfortunately I still can't get the wifi to work despite having installed the 2 packages suggested (after removing existing ones). I think I'll try a 64 bit system.

[JeremyB]

Check

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dkms status; ls /etc/modprobe.d