HOW TO: Configure wireless cards with Broadcom chipsets

[jonny]

Edit: bodhi.zazen - Please note, this thread is from 2005 and although it turns up on a google search the information is out of date.

Please see the Ubuntu wiki broadcom page



6 July 2006 Update
I haven't had a Broadcom card for many months, but I've been told this how-to doesn't work properly under Dapper. Here are a couple of links that have been passed to me - but I can't vouch for their quality.

http://www.beginningubuntu.com/dappe...t_wifi_working
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=201902

Good luck. I'm very happy that this how-to has helped so many people in the past year or so.

Broadcom wireless cards are tricky to set up in ubuntu, and the forums are full of frustrated users seeking advice. Broadcom provide no Linux support (feel free to complain to your hardware vendor or choose a different card if you haven't yet shelled out your cash), but they can be made to work - and you're in the right place if you want to know how.

First, you need to find out if this How To is for you. Broadcom wireless cards come under many brand names and, in particular, are used in many Dell and Acer laptops. Look for the drivers supplied with your card (Dell usually store a copy in C:/DRIVERS/NETWORK/ADDON); if you have a file called bcmwl5.inf or bcmwl5a.inf then keep on reading. You won't succeed without following these instructions!

0. Before you start, clear out any mess from existing failed attempts to use ndiswrapper. Note that you shouldn't use a root terminal to execute the code in this how-to; use a normal terminal session instead.

sudo modprobe -r bcmwl5
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo rm -r /etc/ndiswrapper/
sudo rm -r /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

Some of these steps may report errors; just ignore them.

1. Copy the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys files to your desktop

2. Follow the advice given here under How to add extra repositories

3. Open a terminal session and enter this code. Note that you need an active network connection for this to work; I've assumed that if you have access to a wireless LAN, you also have access to a wired network as a fallback.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -m
for conffile in /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5/*.conf; do
sudo cat $conffile | sed -e 's/RadioState|1/RadioState|0/' > $conffile
done

4. Reboot your PC. On restarting, the light on your wireless card should come on. If not, try entering

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

5. Your card is now working. Open the networking configuration tool System --> Administration --> Networking

6. Select your wireless network card (probably wlan0) and hit the properties button.

7. Tick the 'This device is configured' box, and enter your network name and connection settings. Ask your office network administrator for support if you don't know what this question means, or copy your settings from Windows.

8. BE CAREFUL entering your WEP key, if you're using one. You're expected to enter this in hexadecimal form; if you don't speak hex, prefix your key with s:

9. Click OK. The screen should close fairly quickly; if it hangs, you probably aren't connected properly.

10. Back in the Network Settings screen, select your wireless device as the default gateway device.

11. Click OK. Again, the screen should close fairly quickly.

12. Enjoy wireless nirvana. If everything works, you can delete the file from your desktop.

13. You might notice that the signal strength applet doesn't work properly. This is a known bug with these cards.

If you have trouble, try booting into Windows - if you dual boot - and checking that the card is enabled. Some laptops allow the wireless card to be switched off, usually with a special key combination, and I've not found a reliable way to make this work in Linux.

(Note: This how-to has been updated to reflect all comments from the thread up to 19 April)