How to get wireless (BCM4331) working on Macbook Pro 8,2/8,1/8,3 + Natty

[proycon]

As you probably all know, Macbook Pro 8.x owners, with a Broadcom 4331 wireless card, ) have had to endure the hardship of being tethered with a network cable to the wall, or use the flaky ndiswrapper locking up our precious systems at random moments (read: whenever we are doing something important and haven't saved our data yet).

But no more of this now: After some search I found that there is a solution to get our wireless working properly with the newest open-source b43 driver (recall that the proprietary wl driver *STILL* provides no support for the BCM4331). The solution is here and whilst it does involve compiling a kernel module, (but not upgrade the entire kernel to 3.0+), the steps are well laid out and should be easy to follow:

http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c705283/archives/2011/09/04/linux_support_for_broadcom_4331_wireless_chip_macb ook_pro_81/index.html

I have tested this and it works great on Ubuntu 11.04 (natty). This post is written and published without any strings attached!

Note 1: If you later do a kernel update through the package manager you will also have to recompile the module as it will probably get overwritten.

Note 2: If the wireless.kernel.org link in the post is not working (kernal.org is down after their unfortunate security mishab), then get the required package from for example http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/

[inphektion]

Would the same have to be done on oneric? or less steps needed?

[proycon]

I haven't tried oneiric yet (waiting for the final release), but if the b43 driver with oneiric doesn't work out of the box yet, then the same procedure can be applied.

[cuppido]

Instructions from http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c705283/archives/2011/09/04/linux_support_for_broadcom_4331_wireless_chip_macb ook_pro_81/index.html are working in my MBP 8,2 in Oneiric.

[inphektion]

so when kernel updates are out via the repo these steps need to be redone, correct?
Edit: yes.

any chance an update in oneric will have builtin support? or we looking at precise pangolin for that?

[ymccarthy]

I have just followed the instructions ( http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c705283/..._81/index.html ) to install the b43 driver on MacBook Pro 8,2 running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid) and it worked like a charm!!! My Wireless is up and running! :D Thanks a lot!

[jerwilkins]

This is on a 8,3 Macbook running Oneiric:

Followed the instructions to the letter and got:

FATAL: Error inserting b43 (/lib/modules/3.0.14-generic/updates/drivers/net/wireless/b43/b43.ko): Invalid argument
FATAL: Error running install command for b43
after the
sudo modprobe b43 step.
(That path may not be exact; I'm typing it from memory, but when I was on the machine I double-checked to make sure the .ko file was where it ought to be.)

This is using the latest files from the above-linked site.

Any notions?
Thanks much in advance!

[aliyanage]

Hi,

I've managed to install the driver and I can also see the interface being available when doing an ifconfig:



root@bt:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr c8:2a:14:0a:02:30
inet addr:10.0.1.58 Bcast:10.0.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::ca2a:14ff:fe0a:230/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:131 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:125 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:24779 (24.7 KB) TX bytes:22580 (22.5 KB)
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:17 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:17 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1073 (1.0 KB) TX bytes:1073 (1.0 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr e0:f8:47:1a:87:b6
UP BROADCAST 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)



But as you can see it doesn't get an ip address, would someone be able to help me out on this?

[jmr423]

hey I'm getting this error


FATAL: Error inserting b43 (/lib/modules/3.2.6/updates/drivers/net/wireless/b43/b43.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)


At the last step,
sudo modprobe b43

What do i do :S?

[heathman001]

I see this is an older thread, but I'm also getting the following when I run modprobe b43

FATAL: Error inserting b43 (/lib/modules/3.2.0-32-generic/updates/drivers/net/wireless/b43/b43.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

dmesg output:

cfg80211: Unknown symbol simple_open (err 0)


Has anyone figured out the solution? I've tried a number of versions from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/stable/ They all compile without issues, but they all fail with the same message from modprobe.

[varunendra]

I see this is an older thread,..For the same above reason ^^ you should post your own thread in networking and wireless section, and besides a complete description of the problem, as well as what all you have tried so far, please also post the result of what is suggested in this post - http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=12350385

Then wait for a while and see if someone experienced picks it up. If not, you may PM me its link so I can follow (consider this last resort since I'm not familiar with this card nor compat-wireless drivers).