How-To: Dell 1390 WLAN (Broadcom 4311 [14e4:4311]) for Laptops using ndiswrapper

[jw5801]

This How-To describes how to get WiFi working with the Broadcom 1390 WLAN offered in many Dell and HP laptops using ndiswrapper. Many of us use ndiswrapper as an alternative to the native drivers (b43), as we feel the native drivers have not quite reached a point where they compare with ndiswrapper, usually this relates to only being able to use 802.11b connections (11Mbps) as opposed to 802.11g (54Mbps).

The how-to has been tested and found to work on both AMD64 and i386 installs of Ubuntu Hardy Heron, and should also work on all future versions. If you have any troubles, leave a post and I'll do my best to sort them out.

NOTICE: There is no 'linux-ubuntu-modules' meta-package that can be used to install new versions of this package whenever a kernel update is pushed through. Therefore, everytime you install a new kernel, make sure to also install the corresponding linux-ubuntu-modules package, for example:

sudo apt-get install linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-generic

The How-To is loosely based on Paperdiesel's How-To for earlier versions of Ubuntu which can be found here. If you are running a version older than Hardy, you should refer to paperdiesel's How-To.

DISCLAIMER It's important to note that many people struggle to get wireless working simply because they have unsuccessfully tried a variety of methods and left their system in a shambles. If you've been playing around with alternative methods there's a good chance you won't be able to get this to work until you reverse any previous changes you may have made. It's perhaps best to come straight to this How-To after a fresh install.

To check that you have the same card that this how-to is written for, run the following command:

lspci -nn | grep 14e4

and you should see something similar to the following:

05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI [14e4:4311] (rev 01)

The section in bold is the important part. If that part doesn't match then you will need a different driver to use with ndiswrapper. The how-to should still be valid however! If you don't have the same WiFi card, have a look at the list of supported cards here, and it should point you in the right direction for a driver to use.

STEP 1: OBTAINING THE REQUIRED PACKAGES
Thankfully, Hardy (and onwards) includes a new enough version of ndiswrapper to remove the need for installing it from source. This saves a lot of trouble during the install process.

For the install process I find it best to create a separate working directory to get all this done in. You can use whatever directory you'd like so long as you're consistent, if you're unsure copy the way I've done it.

Most of the work from here on will be done from the command-line, so open up a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and use it to create your working directory:

mkdir wireless-install
cd wireless-install

First we need to obtain the correct XP driver (Vista drivers WILL NOT WORK with ndiswrapper) for this chipset, and also install some extra packages. This is easy if you have access to the internet (via a wired connection or otherwise):

wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151519.EXE

NOTE: If lspci above showed that you had a different chipset, this driver won't work. You're welcome to try using a different driver, however ndiswrapper is a temperamental thing, so I can't guarantee it will work with just any driver. A google search for the number relating to your card, ie. 14e4:4315 or 14e4:4318, and ndiswrapper should return a driver you can use quite quickly.

Next install ndiswrapper. The latest version is available from the repositories which is a rather nice change for those of us who are used to the need to recompile ndiswrapper on every kernel change! Although, on that note, the most recent kernel update didn't install the modules that were needed alongside it, so I'll include the installation here.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
sudo apt-get install linux-ubuntu-modules-$(uname -r)

If you have no internet access on your Ubuntu machine then you'll need to get the appropriate driver from here and copy it to your working directory (~/wireless-install). The packages can be installed from your trusty LiveCD:

sudo mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom
sudo apt-cdrom add -m
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils linux-ubuntu-modules-$(uname -r)

STEP 2: PREVENTING THE NATIVE MODULES FROM INTERFERING WITH NDISWRAPPER

NOTE FOR ANYONE WHO IS NOT USING A FRESH INSTALL
If you used ndiswrapper in Gutsy and upgraded directly to Hardy (or tried another method before coming here), odds are good that you'll have a line in the /etc/modules file that loads ndiswrapper, in order for this part of the how-to to work you'll need to remove that line:

gksudo gedit /etc/modules
#if under KDE, replace gksudo with kdesudo and gedit with kedit

And delete any line(s) that contain "ndiswrapper"
END NOTE

This process is not quite as simple as it has been in the past due to the different native modules and how they interact with each other. So firstly we're going to blacklist a few things by adding them to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file:

echo blacklist b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
echo blacklist b43legacy | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
echo blacklist wl | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

NOTE: You can do this with a text editor, using "gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist" for example. I like the fancy way because it means you can copy and paste just one command and removes the chance of typos.

NOTE II: The wl module is a new addition and is intended for the 4315 chipset, but there have been reports of it also being loaded for the 4311 chipset (it doesn't appear to work at all, however). If anyone is interested, b43 (and b43legacy) are the in-kernel drivers, these are the supported open source drivers (which I've never found to work particularly well). wl however appears to be Ubuntu only and is found in ubuntu-restricted-extras, so if you don't have this package installed, there's no need to blacklist this module, however doing so can't harm anything.

We also need to add a bootscript to load a couple of modules in an order that suits us. The reason being that the ssb module takes control of our card, thus preventing ndiswrapper from controlling it, however ssb is required by the b44 driver, which handles wired broadcom cards, so we can't just blacklist it. If you would like (and know how to), you can easily use a new script to do this, however the easiest way I find is to add it to /etc/rc.local. To do this we need to edit the file:

gksudo gedit /etc/rc.local
#if under KDE, replace gksudo with kdesudo and gedit with kedit

Feel free to replace gedit with the text editor of your choice (kate, mousepad, emacs, nano, vi, bluefish, etc), then add the following to lines to the end of the script, just before the "exit 0":

modprobe -r b44
modprobe -r ssb
modprobe ndiswrapper
modprobe b44

To give you an idea, my /etc/rc.local now looks like this:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

## Loading ndiswrapper and b44 in correct order
modprobe -r b44
modprobe -r ssb
modprobe ndiswrapper
modprobe b44

exit 0

STEP 3: INSTALLING THE DRIVER WITH NDISWRAPPER

Now we're going to use the driver we downloaded from the Dell website (note that it doesn't matter if your laptop is not a Dell, this driver should still work if you have the same chipset) to give ndiswrapper all it needs to access our card:

cd ~/wireless-install/
unzip -a R151519.EXE -d R151519/
cd R151519/DRIVER/
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

NOTE: Make sure you use the right case, in Linux driver and Driver are very different to DRIVER.
NOTE II: For those of you who have funky fonts in the forum, the driver is a lower caps BCMWL5.inf. Some confusion has occurred as to whether the "L" is a "1" or an "I", hopefully that clarifies!

And that's it! You should be just a reboot away from having a working wireless card:

sudo shutdown -r now

If you'd like to verify it's working properly without the need for a reboot, try the following series of commands. If your laptop has a wifi-light it should light up after you "modprobe ndiswrapper".

sudo rmmod b43 b44 ssb
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe b44

NOTE: This is essentially what the script we added to /etc/rc.local does, only that script doesn't need to remove the b43 module as it is blacklisted and should not be loaded to start with.


CLEANING UP

Once you're happy everything is working well, you can safely remove the working directory:

rm -r ~/wireless-install

Or you could keep it on hand for future reference!


TROUBLESHOOTING
If you have any trouble with the How-To or it doesn't work as expected please post in the thread. I check the thread quite often and I'm always happy to help. It's also possible there's something I've missed which I can then incorporate into the How-To for everyone else to benefit from. If you're posting seeking help, please include the outputs of the following commands:

lspci -nn | grep 14e4
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -v
lsmod | grep b43
lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
ls -l /etc/rc.local
cat /etc/rc.local
lshw -C network

as well as anything else you think is relevant. Please include long code outputs in [code] tags (the # button in the advanced edit view) so they're easier to read.


UNINSTALLING

If for some reason you'd like to remove everything that this how-to has done, it's rather simple:
Undo the file changes we made:

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# Remove the line we added: "blacklist b43"
gksudo gedit /etc/rc.local
# Remove the four modprobe lines we added

Remove the driver we told ndiswrapper to use:

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5

Remove ndiswrapper:

sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils

Changelog:
21/04/08: Made minor clarifications to layout
22/04/08: Added Troubleshooting section
26/04/08: Added redundancy for users with no broadcom wired card
26/04/08: Added note for Gutsy upgraders
01/05/08: Added blacklist for b43legacy
10/05/08: Fixed old link
11/05/08: Added link to NDISwrapper wiki (list of supported cards)
04/06/08: Added extra package to install
08/07/08: Updated troubleshooting
24/07/08: Added redundancy for KDE users
09/09/09: Added code to blacklist wl (meant for 4315 chipset and included in ubuntu-restricted-extras)
11/11/09: Cleaned up the introduction a bit

[Krovas]

Worked like a charm on my Compaq/HP lappy.

[Champers]

Didn't work for my on Dell e1505.

[Champers]

Well, after running

modprobe -r b44
modprobe -r b43
modprobe -r ssb
modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper
modprobe b44

my internet finally worked after 3 days of googling tutorials lol

[jw5801]

Originally Posted by Champers Well, after running modprobe -r b44 modprobe -r b43 modprobe -r ssb modprobe -r ndiswrapper modprobe ndiswrapper modprobe b44 my internet finally worked after 3 days of googling tutorials lol

That's exactly what the startup script in /etc/rc.local does, only without removing b43 since b43 is blacklisted and won't be loaded anyway. Does it still work on reboot, or do you need to manually run those commands each time you log in?

[Cheburator]

thanks a lot! works on BCM94311MCG

[davidefergnani]

i followed all the instructions but the wireless card is not workin yet.
I have a Hp pavillion dv9410us with hardy 64 bit
My card is a [14e4:4311] (rev 02).
this is the result of the command in the troubleshooting section:


davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lscpi -nn | grep 14e4
bash: lscpi: command not found
davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: ssb)
davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep b43
davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper 243872 0
usbcore 169904 5 ndiswrapper,uvcvideo,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ ls -l /etc/rc.local



i dont understand why is not working. i followed all the instructions

[jw5801]

Originally Posted by davidefergnani i followed all the instructions but the wireless card is not workin yet. I have a Hp pavillion dv9410us with hardy 64 bit My card is a [14e4:4311] (rev 02). this is the result of the command in the troubleshooting section: davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lscpi -nn | grep 14e4 bash: lscpi: command not found davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ ndiswrapper -l bcmwl5 : driver installed device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: ssb) davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep b43 davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep ndiswrapper ndiswrapper 243872 0 usbcore 169904 5 ndiswrapper,uvcvideo,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd davidefergnani@davidefergnani-laptop:~$ ls -l /etc/rc.local i dont understand why is not working. i followed all the instructions

Ok, can you include the output from the last command? Also what happens when you try the commands to load ndiswrapper:

sudo modprobe -r b44
sudo modprobe -r ssb
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Does that make your wifi light come on? What happens when you run:

iwlist scan
ifconfig

[elnigno]

Originally Posted by jw5801 This How-To describes how to get WiFi working with the Broadcom 1390 WLAN offered in many Dell and HP laptops using ndiswrapper. Many of us use ndiswrapper as an alternative to the native drivers (b43), as we feel the native drivers have no quite reached a point where they compare with ndiswrapper, usually this relates to only being able to use 802.11b connections (11Mbps) as opposed to 802.11g (54Mbps). The how-to has been tested on an AMD64 install of the Hardy Heron Release Candidate (and I'm sure will soon be tested on an i386 install). THIS HOW-TO IS FOR UBUNTU HARDY HERON (8.04) ONLY. The How-To is loosely based on Paperdiesel's How-To for earlier versions of Ubuntu which can be found here. If you are not running Hardy, then this How-To will not work. You should refer to paperdiesel's How-To. DISCLAIMER It's important to note that many people struggle to get wireless working simply because they have unsuccessfully tried a variety of methods and left their system in a shambles. If you've been playing around with alternative methods there's a good chance you won't be able to get this to work until you reverse any previous changes you may have made. It's perhaps best to come straight to this How-To after a fresh install. To check that you have the same card that this how-to is written for, run the following command: lspci -nn | grep 14e4 and you should see something similar to the following: 05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI [14e4:4311] (rev 01) The section in bold is the important part. If that part doesn't match then you will need a different driver to use with ndiswrapper. The how-to should still be valid however! STEP 1: OBTAINING THE REQUIRED PACKAGES Thankfully, Hardy includes a new enough version of ndiswrapper to remove the need for installing it from source. This saves a lot of trouble during the install process. For the install process I find it best to create a separate working directory to get all this done in. You can use whatever directory you'd like so long as you're consistent, if you're unsure copy the way I've done it. Most of the work from here on will be done from the command-line, so open up a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and use it to create your working directory: mkdir wireless-install cd wireless-install First we need to obtain the correct XP driver (Vista drivers WILL NOT WORK with ndiswrapper) for this chipset, and also install some extra packages. This is easy if you have access to the internet (via a wired connection or otherwise): wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151519.EXE NOTE: If lspci above showed that you had a different chipset, this driver won't work. You're welcome to try using a different driver, however ndiswrapper is a temperamental thing, so I can't guarantee it will work with just any driver. A google search for the number relating to your card, ie. 14e4:4315 or 14e4:4318, and ndiswrapper should return a driver you can use quite quickly. Next install ndiswrapper. The latest version is available from the Hardy repositories which is a rather nice change for those of us who are used to the need to recompile ndiswrapper on every kernel change! sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 If you have no internet access on your Ubuntu machine then you'll need to get the appropriate driver from here and copy it to your working directory (~/wireless-install). The packages can be installed from your trusty Hardy LiveCD (a Gutsy, or any other, LiveCD WILL NOT WORK): sudo apt-cdrom add #When prompted, insert your Hardy CD and press enter sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 NOTE: Hardy behaved oddly with this so I had to work around a bit to get the above to work, it wasn't as simple as it should be. If anyone else has this issue I'll edit the above to use my workaround and post a bug report (I'll probably do the second anyway). STEP 2: PREVENTING THE NATIVE MODULES FROM INTERFERING WITH NDISWRAPPER This process is not quite as simple as it has been in the past due to the different native modules and how they interact with each other. So firstly we're going to blacklist a few things by adding them to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file: NOTE: You can do this with a text editor, using "gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist" for example. I just like to do it the fancy way! So if you copy and paste the line below, you can't go wrong! echo blacklist b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist We also need to add a bootscript to load a couple of modules in an order that suits us. The reason being that the ssb module takes control of our card, thus preventing ndiswrapper from controlling it, however ssb is required by the b44 driver, which handles wired broadcom cards, so we can't just blacklist it. If you would like (and know how to), you can easily use a new script to do this, however the easiest way I find is to add it to /etc/rc.local. To do this we need to edit the file: gksudo gedit /etc/rc.local Feel free to replace gedit with the text editor of your choice (kate, mousepad, emacs, nano, vi, bluefish, etc), then add the following to lines to the end of the script, just before the "exit 0": modprobe -r b44 modprobe -r ssb modprobe ndiswrapper modprobe b44 To give you an idea, my /etc/rc.local now looks like this: #!/bin/sh -e # # rc.local # # This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel. # Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other # value on error. # # In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution # bits. # # By default this script does nothing. ## Loading ndiswrapper and b44 in correct order modprobe -r b44 modprobe -r ssb modprobe ndiswrapper modprobe b44 exit 0 STEP 3: INSTALLING THE DRIVER WITH NDISWRAPPER Now we're going to use the driver we downloaded from the Dell website (note that it doesn't matter if your laptop is not a Dell, this driver should still work if you have the same chipset) to give ndiswrapper all it needs to access our card: cd ~/wireless-install/ unzip -a R151519.EXE -d R151519/ cd R151519/DRIVER/ sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf NOTE: Make sure you use the right case, in Linux driver and Driver very different to DRIVER. And that's it! You should be just a reboot away from having a working wireless card: sudo shutdown -r now If you'd like to verify it's working properly without the need for a reboot, try the following series of commands: NOTE: This is essentially what the script we added to /etc/rc.local does, only that script doesn't need to remove the b43 module as it is blacklisted and should not be loaded to start with. sudo rmmod b43 b44 ssb sudo modprobe ndiswrapper sudo modprobe b44 If your laptop has a wifi-light it should light up after you modprobe ndiswrapper. CLEANING UP Once you're happy everything is working well, you can safely remove the working directory: rm -r ~/wireless-install Or you could keep it on hand for future reference! TROUBLESHOOTING If you have any trouble with the How-To or it doesn't work as expected please post in the thread. I check the thread quite often and I'm always happy to help. It's also possible there's something I've missed which I can then incorporate into the How-To for everyone else to benefit from. If you're posting seeking help, please include the outputs of the following commands: lscpi -nn | grep 14e4 ndiswrapper -l lsmod | grep b43 lsmod | grep ndiswrapper ls -l /etc/rc.local as well as anything else you think is relevant. Please include long code outputs in [code] tags (the # button in the advanced edit view) so they're easier to read. UNINSTALLING If for some reason you'd like to remove everything that this how-to has done, it's rather simple: Undo the file changes we made: gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist # Remove the line we added: "blacklist b43" gksudo gedit /etc/rc.local # Remove the four modprobe lines we added Remove the driver we told ndiswrapper to use: sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5 Remove ndiswrapper: sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils Changelog: 21/04/08: Made minor clarifications to layout 22/04/08: Added Troubleshooting section

I love you, really! It worked!

[Champers]

Originally Posted by jw5801 That's exactly what the startup script in /etc/rc.local does, only without removing b43 since b43 is blacklisted and won't be loaded anyway. Does it still work on reboot, or do you need to manually run those commands each time you log in?

I made a script with the commands in it and added it to the /etc/init.d so that it would run everytime I turn on the computer, all by itself