Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 11

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

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Eindhoven, NL
    Beans
    48
    Distro
    Xubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

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

    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/

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Beans
    468
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

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

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

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Eindhoven, NL
    Beans
    48
    Distro
    Xubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

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

    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.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Beans
    3

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

    Instructions from http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c705283/..._81/index.html are working in my MBP 8,2 in Oneiric.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Beans
    468
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

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

    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?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Beans
    1

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

    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!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Beans
    20

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

    This is on a 8,3 Macbook running Oneiric:

    Followed the instructions to the letter and got:
    Code:
    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
    Code:
    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!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Zurich, Switzerland
    Beans
    165
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

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

    Hi,

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

    Code:
    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?
    ubuntu? ubuntu... ubuntu!!! =D>
    http://www.mindexchange.ch/

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Beans
    30

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

    hey I'm getting this error

    Code:
    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,
    Code:
    sudo modprobe b43
    What do i do :S?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Beans
    11

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

    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.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •