[SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4328 not working in Intrepid

[HDave]

I have been using ndiswrapper with Gutsy and Hardy with success. After an upgrade to Intrepid a few days ago, my wlan0 interface no longer appears in network manager or within "ifconfig". However the hardware device still appears if I do "lshw -C network".

I uninstalled everything that was associated with ndiswrapper, hoping to get jockey to correctly apply the correct driver. Jockey shows me two wireless drivers (both appeared in the dialog following the upgrade) -- "wl" and "Broadcom B43 Wireless Driver". Neither one works and I have no idea why.

I am really looking forward to using native Linux drivers, so any help here is much appreciated!

[Ayuthia]

Originally Posted by HDave I have been using ndiswrapper with Gutsy and Hardy with success. After an upgrade to Intrepid a few days ago, my wlan0 interface no longer appears in network manager or within "ifconfig". However the hardware device still appears if I do "lshw -C network". I uninstalled everything that was associated with ndiswrapper, hoping to get jockey to correctly apply the correct driver. Jockey shows me two wireless drivers (both appeared in the dialog following the upgrade) -- "wl" and "Broadcom B43 Wireless Driver". Neither one works and I have no idea why. I am really looking forward to using native Linux drivers, so any help here is much appreciated!

If they both show up, try using the wl driver. I don't think that the b43 supports your card at this time. Once you have it enabled, go to the Terminal and try the following (will only work for the current session):

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ndiswrapper wl bcm43xx
sudo modprobe wl
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo iwlist scan

If it works, then you are not blacklisting something.

[eternal_sage]

i am also having this exact same problem. this is a fresh intrepid install (wiped my wife's laptop last night and installed the release candidate) and i'm getting the exact same problems as the OP, complete with the wl, broadcom proprietary drivers thing.

have not checked the above suggestion, as i'm getting the XP partition working right now, will try in a bit.

oh, and btw, i also disabled the broadcom driver, and the wl driver said it was enabled but not active. is this just a symptom of a greater problem, or maybe the problem itself?

[eternal_sage]

i ran the above commands and got the following

courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ndiswrapper wl bcm43xx
FATAL: Module ssb is in use.
courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo modprobe wl
courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
 * Reconfiguring network interfaces...                                          Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.
                                                                         [ OK ]
courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

pan0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

courtney@Cortana:~$

[superm1]

It sounds like you might have another driver using the b44 driver. Try to rmmod b44 and try all those steps again.

[Ayuthia]

Originally Posted by eternal_sage i ran the above commands and got the following courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ndiswrapper wl bcm43xx FATAL: Module ssb is in use. courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo modprobe wl courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart * Reconfiguring network interfaces... Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0. [ OK ] courtney@Cortana:~$ sudo iwlist scan lo Interface doesn't support scanning. eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning. pan0 Interface doesn't support scanning. courtney@Cortana:~$

I agree with superm1. It does look like b44 is loaded because of the ssb message. Please try again with the following:

sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb ndiswrapper bcm43xx wl
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe b44
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If it does work, please the results of lspci -nn and if you really need the b44 module, I can give you a script to add so that it will load the b44 module after the wl driver is loaded.

[HDave]

I too got the message "FATAL: Module ssb is in use.".

So I went ahead and did the "rmmod b44". This allowed modprobe to remove the ssb module. After this I could get my wireless working just fine.

The problem is, it was my ethernet adapter that was using this "b44" module. (What is this b44 module anyway?)

Any idea how I can get both to work at the same time without ndiswrapper?

[Ayuthia]

Sorry, I was confused when I saw eternal_sage's post. eternal_sage has another one in an ndiswrapper post. My post should have read:

sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb ndiswrapper bcm43xx wl
sudo modprobe wl
sudo modprobe b44
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If that works, you can create the following script:

echo -e '#ssb workaround, added `date`\ninstall wl modprobe -r b43 b44 b43legacy ssb; modprobe --ignore-install wl $CMDLINE_OPTS; modprobe b44;' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/wl

EDIT:

The problem is, it was my ethernet adapter that was using this "b44" module. (What is this b44 module anyway?)

The b44 module (driver) is what makes your ethernet adapter work. The driver requires the ssb module (Sonic Silicon Backplane) which is something that is inside of Broadcom cards. However, if the ssb module finds a device that it needs (like the wireless and wired cards for your computer), it will not share with other drivers. So if you need it to work, you have to load it after the module that you need (in this case, the wl module). Hope that makes sense.

[HDave]

Ayuthia -- Thank you very much. All is now well.

Am I to understand that the ssb kernel module is a driver that, once loaded, will only talk to the other modules already loaded.

In other words, there is a loading dependency where wl, and b44 need to be loaded first and then ssb?

If so, is this a defect I should report to launchpad or can we all expect it to be addressed before 8.10 release?

[Ayuthia]

Originally Posted by HDave Ayuthia -- Thank you very much. All is now well. Am I to understand that the ssb kernel module is a driver that, once loaded, will only talk to the other modules already loaded. In other words, there is a loading dependency where wl, and b44 need to be loaded first and then ssb? If so, is this a defect I should report to launchpad or can we all expect it to be addressed before 8.10 release?

ssb is actually called by the b44 module. The b44 module needs the ssb module so it will load it automatically. The problem occurs because the b44 module is built into the kernel module where the wl module is not. So when the system boots up, it will load the b44 module first. Then it will load all the other non-builtin modules afterwards (like the wl module). Since the b44 module is loaded, the ssb is loaded also. Then the wl module will try to load, but will not be able to attach to the wireless device because the ssb module already found it. That is why the workaround is needed.

So, I am not really for sure about how to call this issue. I would guess that someone has already posted one in launchpad, but you can check.