14.04LTS on Compaq Mini 110 netbook (Broadcom BCM 4312), wifi issues

[chili555]

I dont agree that it should be purged per se, but maybe we should all chip in and send Broadcom and email or five.

It must be purged. Installation of the STA driver, aka bcmwl-kernel-source, installs a blacklist file for b43 and ssb. Depending on your ethernet device, blacklisting ssb also disables the ethernet!!! Great job, Broadcom! 'purge' removes the blacklist.

As far as emails to Broadcom, please proceed. I would do so, but I have no Broadcom device to use as an example. There are, in fact, quite a few devices that are incorrectly identified as needing the STA driver.

Here's a question though. If the B43 is the open source driver, that to me would suggest that wireless would have worked out of the box. If wireless worked out of the box, there'd be no reason to even attempt installing the closed source STA driver. So that begs the question... was the STA driver installed while wireless was working? Or did 14.04 somehow not detect wireless whatsoever?

I am not sure of the exact process during install. b43 won't work without firmware which is not available on the Ubuntu iso since it isn't free and open source, GPL and so forth.

I suspect that when users agree to download and install additional drivers during install, primarily because of their video drivers, the wrong driver gets installed for wireless, too.

[chili555]

Im having a similiar issue with my BCM4321 using the STA driver.

Since that is not the subject of this thread, I suggest a new thread, unless you have one now. Link?

According to Broadcom's readme file, the latest version (6.30.223.141) has support up to kernel 3.8. Read more here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

There are many incorrect devices in that document. Many.

[sebastian-poliuc]

Ok chili, thanks for the help so far. How should i go about installing the b43 driver? Is there a specific one for my wifi chipset or is it one-size-fits-all? Also, i do have to purge the sta driver, so the steps would be, 1- purge STA, 2-install b43, 3-???

[Roasted]

If I recall *correctly* since the b43 driver is open source it's essentially built as part of the kernel. As a result once you go through those steps it'll simply fall back to the open source driver, aka the b43 driver.

[chili555]

Ok chili, thanks for the help so far. How should i go about installing the b43 driver? Is there a specific one for my wifi chipset or is it one-size-fits-all? Also, i do have to purge the sta driver, so the steps would be, 1- purge STA, 2-install b43, 3-???

The driver is already present; the firmware is not. Please get a working ethernet connection, open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

Detach the ethernet, reboot and enjoy.