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/..._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/..._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! Thanks a lot!