Broadcom Wireless STA driver (wl) Ubuntu 9.10/10.04

[bloodofangels302]

THANKS! this is the only thing that worked for my dell studio 1535.

[andril]

This works - I connected to the lan cable did the updates via Synaptics and the n the drivers were available for the wireless

[Gary00]

hiya owhno, i have no doubt that what your saying works, but can u be a bit more detailed about what to do, i have the broadcom downloaded and i have made the mods to "wl_linux.h" but after that im so lost, Thanks for you help and efforts, and yes i am running 10.04

[kamalkhadka]

Problem using Broadcom Wireless in Ubuntu 9.10/10.04 because it is not supported by b43 driver ?


3. Compile the code with: make

How is this done?

[Cerin]

hi thanks for your help
although including linux/sched.h in wl/sys/wl_linux.c is not working for me:
linux.c:35:27: error: linux/sched.h : No such file or directory
do i have to add sched.h from somewhere?

Has anyone resolved this error? I also get this, even though I installed the linux-headers-generic package.

[degarb]

How is this done?

Very confusing. Wouldn't installing the gui for ndis or win wireless wrapper, then inserting xp cd for the drivers work much easier? And, doesn't the popular card, Belkin, use airforce broadcom drivers. This is too confusing for a regular computer user to follow. Even after reading the linux manual...months ago.

The entire procedure about sums up the problem with Linux-love of complexity, the feeling of being elite. In the windows world, the author would just write up a compiled exe that would install the drivers and works. One click solution for every one. Not in Linux. No. We must have a 20 step solution that will take an hour to figure out, which may or may not work. It took 2 days of trying to get my belkin card to work with 9, I could not get the linux solutions to work for what ever reason. Ndis gui was the only solution that worked. I doubt if I will be trying this or version 10 because, no wireless card is the equivalent to no system on this laptop. Not worth the risk or hassle, which saddens me.

Why doesn't someone who is capable, simply write a program to install the driver? Isn't the core philosophy: usability and to help others. I appreciate the steps given, but above 99 percent of users' heads.

[DrAcid]

How is this done?

Excuse me, but I'll have to agree with kamalkhadka on this one...

Would You be so kind and explain to us how _exactly_ is that done?

Thank You!

I have HP Pavilion DV5 1000 laptop, Ubuntu Ultimate Edition 2.5 + Win7 dualboot running...
The wireless works fine on Win7, but on Ubuntu didn't from the very moment I installed it... I am absolutely new to Linux and am VERY fond of it so far... But I can't keep on using laptop with no wireless...

The indicator/sensor on my keyboard didn't work, not turning on the wl card, i guess... A bit of research on Google told me that it could be that my BIOS gotta be updated [apparently that could be the reason why the driver wouldn't install in Ubuntu]...
Updating my BIOS bricked the laptop... Fortunately Google saved me again [YAY! Google]
I updated it successfully using a thumb drive, which got me to the point where I uninstalled and re-installed the Wireless SAT Drivers Using "Hardware Drivers", which GOT me the wanted result!

After a few restarts, it stopped working, and I got stuck using M$ Window$... again!

After this, Jockey gives me this error message:
WARNING: modinfo for module wl failed: ERROR: modinfo: could not find module wl
WARNING: /sys/module/wl/drivers does not exist, cannot rebind wl driver

Is there a way to fix this without cable connection to the Inet?

[*whew*] any help appreciated...

P.S.(btw, GREAT forum, love it here )

[Cerin]

Could someone please explain why make fails? I'm running 10.04 and have the headers installed, but I get the error:

KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic'
  LD      /home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36/built-in.o
  CC [M]  /home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36/src/shared/linux_osl.o
  CC [M]  /home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o
/home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:35:27: error:  linux/sched.h : No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [/home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/myuser/Downloads/hybrid-portsrc-x86_32-v5.60.48.36] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-21-generic'
make: *** [all] Error 2

[Cerin]

hi thanks for your help
although including linux/sched.h in wl/sys/wl_linux.c is not working for me:
linux.c:35:27: error: linux/sched.h : No such file or directory
do i have to add sched.h from somewhere?

I think there might be a typo. Try removing the spaces from the line, e.g. "#include <linux/sched.h>".

Also, try removing the linux-headers-generic package and reinstalling. That fixed that problem for me.

Unfortunately, wireless still doesn't work, but at least it compiles...

[Haavet]

Kamalkhadka, DrAcid: From the terminal go to the folder where you saved the source code. It should be a file called "Makefile" in there, then type:
$ make

I too have followed the above instructions but the fix didn't permanently rectify the problem.

I instead used the rather crude hack below. It'll effectively hard-code access to one specified wireless network, so no good if you frequently access different networks.

Make sure wireless-tools is installed, if not:
$ sudo apt-get install wireless-tools

Verify your network devices is working and wireless networks are detected
$ iwconfig
$ sudo iwlist scan

Make sure wpa-supplicant is installed, if not:
$ sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

Convert your WPA ASCII password to hex:
$ wpa_passphrase <ssid> [passphrase]
- <ssid> is the name of the Wireless network / router
- [passphrase] is your WPA ASCII password
- Copy down the value after “psk=” that is the hex version of your WPA ASCII password

Using dhcp and WPA here is what is added to /etc/network/interfaces

#The wireless interface
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid <SSID of your router>
wpa-ap-scan 1
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk <the PSK that you wrote down>

*note wlan0 is the name of the wireless interface in this example

Restart the network
$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Revoke read-permission from others on /etc/network/interfaces
$ sudo chmod o=-r /etc/network/interfaces