Can`t get BCM4311 wireless to work. Linux mint 16

[anyjuanbutme]

For the love of God please help me. Dell XPS M1330.(Broadcom internal wireless card). 32 bit linux mint 16 (cinnamon) os. Clean start no windows os/dual-boot ect). Not an expert but I do like the OS. Everything that I want works except wi-fi. I have tried everything for 3 days including youtube,forums ect... Perhaps I`m incompetent or just plain stupid but if someone can walk me through this & help me fix this problem I will be grateful. This is an extra computer & not that important, but if I cant get help soon I think it will make a nice target for shooting practice & such.

[xenopeek]

Welcome to Linux Mint Sorry to see you start with problems, though Broadcom is unfortunately a bit known for that.

Do you have a wired connection also, and do you have Internet access on that? That will make things easier.

First, please open the terminal application on your Linux Mint 16 installation and type this command and press Enter:

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mintwifi

mintwifi will gather some information about your wifi and do some tests. It should ask for your password for some things also. Type your password and note that on the terminal you don't get any visual feedback as you type a password. Copy the output generated by mintwifi back here. See the terminal's Edit menu for copying text.

[anyjuanbutme]

yes. I do have wired connection & yes it is connected.

[xenopeek]

Great Please share the output of the mintwifi command, as that gives those that want to help you some needed information.

[anyjuanbutme]

I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)
==> PCI ID = 14e4:4312 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:c5:82:36:f8
inet addr:192.168.1.106 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::215:c5ff:fe82:36f8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:230806 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:125663 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:343569681 (343.5 MB) TX bytes:9733591 (9.7 MB)
Interrupt:17

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:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:5574 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5574 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1276580 (1.2 MB) TX bytes:1276580 (1.2 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
[sudo] password for anyjuan:
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 216.167.161.35
Address: 216.167.161.35#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.133
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.134
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.135
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.136
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.137
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.142
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.128
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.129
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.130
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.131
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.132

[xenopeek]

Did you install any drivers yourself while searching for a solution? If so, please remove those first.

Then install the package firmware-b43-installer:

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apt install firmware-b43-installer

Reboot and click on the network icon. Is wireless now enabled?

If not, please run these diagnostic commands and share the output here:

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lsmod | egrep 'b43|bcma|brcmsmac|wl'

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rfkill list

[Wild_Dyl]

I was having the same problem as the OP, with a fresh install. I followed the steps and after a reboot my card is now working. Thank you very much. I spent hours and hours trying to get this working on various install of Ubuntu, it worked out of the box on Fedora, but I really wanted it to work on Mint. So thanks again, another member of the Mint community added today.

[anyjuanbutme]

anyjuan@anyjuan-XPS-M1330 ~ $ apt install firmware-b43-installer
[sudo] password for anyjuan:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
firmware-b43-installer is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 218 not upgraded.
anyjuan@anyjuan-XPS-M1330 ~ $ rfkill list
anyjuan@anyjuan-XPS-M1330 ~ $
anyjuan@anyjuan-XPS-M1330 ~ $

Followed your advice & still does not work. I hope this helps.

[anyjuanbutme]

yjuan@anyjuan-XPS-M1330 ~ $ lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1713] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell XPS M1330 [1028:0209]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47
Memory at fe5f0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
Expansion ROM at <ignored> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: tg3

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1490 Dual Band WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at fe8fc000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: wl

[Hoser Rob]

You didn't post the info that indicated which broadcom driver you were using (brcmsmac etc).

brcmsmac is the most common one, it's used by my broadcom 4313 (14e4:4727 rev 01). It's also apparently frakking broken in ubuntu 13.10/mint 16.

If you're using brcmsmac, see the last entry here for compiling the backports module ...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... 52c6eca7eb

... but unfortunately you'd have to recompile every kernel update.

I've just about HAD IT with broadcom linux support. If there's anything that drives linux newbies back to Windows it's wireless problems in general.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the best solution for broadcom (and some other) wireless adapters in linux is to just get a usb wireless dongle that actually works in linux.

[anyjuanbutme]

I want to thank everyone that tried to help me with this issue. I finally just gave up and put another wireless card in my computer. It worked as soon as I installed it. It is also a Broadcom but it is 1397 instead of the 4311/4312. Perhaps if anyone else is having this issue try another wireless card.

[2004lus]

I had this problem on my Dell D830.
On Synaptic Manager I searched for b43 and installed firmware-b43-installer and b43-fwcutter
But the last thing that made it work was to add a simple line b43 on /etc/modules file.
Works like a charm now.

[The-Wizard]

i find his strange as i am using a dell insperon 1545 with the broadcom 43 series wi-fi card and it worked as soon as i downloaded the drivers off the internet using the additional drivers [driver manager] program

[khf]

i find his strange as i am using a dell insperon 1545 with the broadcom 43 series wi-fi card and it worked as soon as i downloaded the drivers off the internet using the additional drivers [driver manager] program

I can attest that the fix is to insert the "b43" in /etc/modules - my laptop is Hp Compaq nx6325.

I have downloaded the source drivers, the source headers and there is an inconsistency in the header files since it tries to link version 19 when building the kernel.

[fafaman]

Hi, I confirm the solution by 2004lus works on a DELL D620 that is using the 4311 chip. I tried to find a way not to reboot the system after install to make it work, but could not.

I noticed what seam to be a bug: I used the MATE utility 'Administration' > 'Driver Manager' to enable the Broadcom closed driver. After a reboot, the entry for this driver was not in the list anymore, so I could not revert to 'No driver' (only other choice)... I used the 'Package Manager' to remove all proprietary Broadcom driver before using 2004lus method.

Here is the output of mintwifi after success:

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$ mintwifi 
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 14e4:4311 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:c5:37:88:ed  
          inet addr:192.168.1.9  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:c5ff:fe22:69ed/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1315 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1023 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:1504168 (1.5 MB)  TX bytes:158029 (158.0 KB)
          Interrupt:18 

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:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:90 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:90 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:8510 (8.5 KB)  TX bytes:8510 (8.5 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:7d:55:23:90  
          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)

[b.rangel27]

I tried running the command to download the b43 driver and this is what i got in return:
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

How do i fix this?

[xenopeek]

you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

Have you tried doing that?

[mhpdx]

[quote="xenopeek"]Did you install any drivers yourself while searching for a solution? If so, please remove those first.

Then install the package firmware-b43-installer:

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apt install firmware-b43-installer

Reboot and click on the network icon. Is wireless now enabled?

Hi,

I just want to say thank you for this post/help. This was one of the first posts I found on Google, and over a year after your original message this helped a brand new Linux rookie to solve both my shut down problem and wifi problem within 10 seconds.

This worked on 32-bit Linux Mint 17.2.

Cheers,
Mike