HOWTO: Broadcom 43xx based wireless cards the EASY way.

[DarkN00b]

This method is no longer supported and could possibly cause more problems than it fixes. I'm going to leave it up, but just remember - use it at your own risk.

This application is in no way supported by Canonical, the Ubuntu forums or its staff. Use of this application is at your own risk.

You should also know that the code maintainer for this project has moved on to bigger and better things. Unfortunately I don't know anything about programming in python (or any other language.) Thus, the installer available here for download is no longer maintained. Also be advised that the offline installer will not work with Gutsy Gibbon. The online installer may or may not, I haven't tried it.

A note for anyone wanting to install these drivers: If you are using Gutsy Gibbon, it is recommended that you either use the restricted drivers manager to install the firmware or install ndiswrapper yourself. This installation method has already outlived its intended life cycle. If you want to contribute to the next phase of bmartin's work, have a look here That project needs your support, and by support I mean testing. bmartin needs people to run the script available there. Just running the script will not make any changes to your machine but error reports would be appreciated.

IMPORTANT!!! Before you run any of the scripts in this post, read the entire post before doing anything else!

For those of you using WEP, WPA etc. encryption, have a look at this thread. You'll find some great info there.

Speaking of encryption -- If you decide to use the WICD wifi connection manager (and we suggest you do), then you should set the WPA Supplicant driver to "wext" without the quotes. It can be found by clicking the Preferences button in WICD and selecting the drop-down box that shows up there..

Now first of all, thank you for using this HOWTO to try and get your Broadcom card working. Your patronage is appreciated . So here's what we need from you the user. All we ask is that you vote in the poll above. The numbers appear to be skewed very badly and I think they do not reflect the actual usefulness of bmartins great scripts. As an example, from 16 Sept. 2007 to 26 Sept. 2007, about 390 people downloaded the installer, yet the poll indicates that only 463 people have voted in total since this project started on 10 April 2007. For those interested that's 546.3 MB, just over 1/10 my allowed bandwidth for 30 days.

New update! bmartin has updated Python based GTK installer for the firmware and ndiswrapper. We have now gone from v0.3.1 to v0.3.2. See the changelog included with the download for new features. There is a description of the software here.

This howto has been split into two sections. The first is for Gnome / XFCE users and the second is for KDE users. Neither bmartin or I have been able to figure out how to get a Python script to run on double click in KDE. If anyone out there can help with this, please post a message, or PM bmartin or email him. For the time being, see the section for your desktop environment for instructions on how to install these drivers.

The installer checks for a compatible chipset. If it finds that your chipset is compatible it will tell you. If it finds that your chipset is not compatible, it will tell you. I have tested it and this detection seems to work fine. Either way, it is your choice as to which way you want to go. Just choose the method you want to use and click install. It is that easy. If your chipset is found to be incompatible, you will be given the option to install NDISwrapper and the correct Windows driver. The installer now does some automatic logging and includes some information from your kernel log and your system log.

Before you get started, open a terminal and type

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade

Now before you start installing anything, make sure your card is turned on. Laptops with built-in wifi usually have a key combination (most often fn+F2), check your manual. If you are not using a mobile computer, check your BIOS to see if you need to enable detection of PCI devices. You can enter the BIOS of your computer by pressing a button as it boots up, and the machine will tell you which button(s) to use. You will only have a second or two to see what you need to press. Most computers use one of the following keys to enter BIOS: ESC, DEL, F1, F2, F10. Just have a look through your BIOS, but heed this warning! Don't change anything unless you know what you are doing! Mess this up and you could be left with an unbootable computer! If this happens all is not lost though. Just hard reset your machine, enter BIOS, and find the option to reset BIOS to factory defaults and that will fix your problem.


Section 1 - Gnome / XFCE

1. Download one of the installers. It is easiest to save this file to your home folder but it doesn't really matter where you put it:

• Online (0.3.2) installer
• Offline (0.3.2)Installer - (Not all kernels supported)
• If there is a problem downloading the offline installer, please use the alternate link at the end of this post and send me a PM so I can fix it.

2. Right click the .tar.gz file and click Extract Here. It should extract into its own directory.

3. Go into the bcm43xx-gtk-installer-* folder and double click the installer.py file and click the Run button when prompted.

4. The installer should detect which installation method is appropriate for you.

5. Click the install button to install the appropriate driver.

6. Now enter your password and press the Enter key.

The driver should now be installed. Note that you may have to restart your system depending on which method you chose.


Section 2 - KDE


I'm afraid for the time being that KDE users are going to have to use the terminal -- at least until we can figure out how to execute Python scripts in KDE. So here we go:

In a terminal window type the following lines, hitting the enter key at the end of each line. NOTE: only use one of the wget lines. Choose the installer you want to use and wget that one file. If it doesn't work, you can try the other one.

1.

cd ~
wget http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/9/16/1436371/bcm43xx-0.3.2-internet.tar.gz
wget http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/9/16/1436371/bcm43xx-0.3.2-offline.tar.gz
tar xvf bcm43xx-*.tar.gz
cd bcm43xx-*
./installer.py

• The * needs to be replaced by version number of the file you downloaded.

2. The installer should detect which installation method is appropriate for you.

3. Click the install button to install the appropriate driver.

4. Now enter your password and press the Enter key.

Follow the prompts and choose the method that is best for you

The driver should now be installed. Note that you may have to restart your system depending on which method you chose.

If you are a KDE user and know how to get Python scripts to execute as a program, please let us know. At the moment, the default mime type for .py files in KDE is text-plain and we are not able to figure out how to execute them. Simply setting them to executable does not work.

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Thanks to bmartin and his hard work to improve this whole process.

If you are helped by this howto, you might consider giving a donation to the bcm43xx folks here. Please note that bmartin and I are not affiliated with these guys.

Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: I've installed the firmware (or ndiswrapper) and I can see networks, but I can't connect. What can I do?
A: Many people encounter this problem. It's unlikely that reinstalling the firmware or ndiswrapper will solve it. Your best bet is to install wicd. For several users, wicd solves this problem.

Q: How can I get WPA to work?
A: There's a link to a stickied HOWTO for this topic right at the top of this post after the disclaimer (third line, red text). If you feel uncomfortable with those instructions, wicd has built-in WPA support. Your WPA driver should be set to "wext".

Q: I have a blog and I want to link to your instructions. Is that OK?
A: Yep. I encourage it.
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There is an offline installer available here. Use it if you have a machine than has no physical access to the internet. If too many people use this installer though, be aware that I may exceed my Google Pages bandwidth and the file may become unavailable.

[jeffisawesome]

Works like a charm. Thanks so much.

[DarkN00b]

Glad to hear it! Its good to have independent verification that this actually works.

[ios_base]

I'm having problems. I went with your cure and others to my bcm43xx blues and so far nothing is working. Ubuntu community documentation pages didn't help either. I'm stuck. I'll show you some system information to help diagnose.

kolby@Nautilus:~$ sudo lshw -C network *-network description: Ethernet interface product: nVidia Corporation vendor: nVidia Corporation physical id: a bus info: pci@0000:00:0a.0 logical name: eth9 version: a2 serial: 00:00:6c:60:50:60 capacity: 100MB/s width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: pm msi ht bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=forcedeth driverversion=0.60 latency=0 link=no maxlatency=20 mingnt=1 module=forcedeth multicast=yes port=MII *-network UNCLAIMED description: Network controller product: BCM4310 USB Controller vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0 version: 01 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 kolby@Nautilus:~$ iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. eth9 no wireless extensions. kolby@Nautilus:~$ ifconfig eth9 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:6C:60:50:60 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) Interrupt:22 Base address:0x8000 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:64 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:64 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:4992 (4.8 KB) TX bytes:4992 (4.8 KB) kolby@Nautilus:~$ sudo iwconfig eth9 essid any Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) : SET failed on device eth9 ; Operation not supported. kolby@Nautilus:~$

hopefully someone here can help. I don't know what do... I tried to use ndiswrapper and it told me that "bcmwl5" is the wrong driver when I used the command: "ndiswrapper -l"

I'm lost and I tried everything I know. I'm asking humbly now, what am I doing wrong here?

[Duffcase]

works like a charm on my HP dv2140 with feisty. Thank you!

[dbott67]

Another happy guy over here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...23#post2437223

-Dave

[DarkN00b]

Originally Posted by dbott67 Another happy guy over here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...23#post2437223 -Dave

That's really cool.

It feels good to know you helped someone.

[zamBeeK]

Thank you so much. Came off without a hitch.

BK

[Madmoose]

Hey,

How do I fix this?

sudo: ./installbcm43xx.sh: command not found

Thanks

moose

[dbott67]

The command should be:

sudo /path/to/file

(there shouldn't be a colon after 'sudo').

You also need to be in the directory where the script is saved before running the command:

sudo ./installbcm43xx.sh

-Dave