ubuntu 10.10 - Broadcom BCM4311 WLAN - explanation

[uran101]

Hi!

I recently had some problems with my Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN Adapter , but I followed the instructions on the following page:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6077792&postcount=72

and I managed to fix everything. Thank you, Ayunthia.
What happened was that I installed a fresh Ubuntu, but the wireless simply didn't work. Ethernet was fine, though.

What I would like to know is what went wrong. Why didn't everything work right from the beginning? I'd really appreciate it if someone would like to explain it to me.

Outputs: (recreated because the situation is different now, but they reflect the state the configuration was in)

dmesg

firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
firmware: requesting b43-open/ucode5.fw
ERROR: firmware file "b43/ucode5.fw" not found
"b43-open/ucode5.fw" not found

lspci

10:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:17:08:3a:53:19
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:16

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:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:480 (480.0 B) TX bytes:480 (480.0 B)


Thank you!!!

Nenad