Broadcom and 10.04

[ubunterooster]

I heard that the broadcom wireless was opensourced. Now, I have found an ex-linux user who has a laptop with broadcom wireless so I was wondering if the the drivers are in 10.04.

Is it plug and play or do I need to download the drivers separately?

[snowpine]

Broadcom is open-sourcing their drivers, it's true, but not in time for the 10.04 or 10.10 releases (11.04 at the soonest).

So, for now, please refer to the Broadcom How To:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/bcm43xx

Step 1, "Identifying Your Card/Driver" is the most important step so I recommend posting the results back here for advice before proceeding, if you are unsure.

[TBABill]

You'll need to watch for distros running kernel 2.6.37 or newer before they'll be part of the kernel according to articles I had read when the announcement came out.

[Megaptera]

I've found this simple Broadcom fix works on Dell (not only Mini) with 10.04

http://www.ubuntumini.com/2009/11/br...in-karmic.html

[TBABill]

My Dell Inspiron 1545 with Broadcom BCM4312 just requires plugin to ethernet, System>Applications>Hardware and choose the STA driver to install. Then reboot. Works every time.

[ubunterooster]

Broadcom is open-sourcing their drivers, it's true, but not in time for the 10.04 or 10.10 releases (11.04 at the soonest).

So, for now, please refer to the Broadcom How To:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/bcm43xx

Step 1, "Identifying Your Card/Driver" is the most important step so I recommend posting the results back here for advice before proceeding, if you are unsure.

I will set this up in a VM and use remastersys to make a good Live CD for the guy. Thanks all.

[snowpine]

Let's find out which specific Broadcom card the OP has before we start offering suggestions, people... the answer depends on the particular chipset.

[ubunterooster]

Let's find out which specific Broadcom card the OP has before we start offering suggestions, people... the answer depends on the particular chipset.

All I know is "broadcom"

I meet the guy about once a week. I'll ask him next time I see him

[snowpine]

I will set this up in a VM and use remastersys to make a good Live CD for the guy. Thanks all.

You cannot identify the wireless chipset from within a VM, unfortunately. The VM will only see the "virtual" network device (usually a generic ethernet), not the actual Broadcom card.

A better solution is to boot an Ubuntu Live CD and then follow the command to identify the card (cut and pasted for your convenience):

lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

Without the output of that command, any advice I can give you would be an uneducated guess. Generally speaking, there are (at least) 4 ways to "get Broadcom working in Ubuntu": wl (also known as 'sta'), b43, b43legacy, ndiswrapper. Which one to choose depends on the chipset you have.