[SOLVED] BCM43228 problem with 17.1 Rebecca

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 1:30 pm

I am having problems with the BCM43228 WiFi card. It was fine on the 17.0 version of Linux Mint.

I used http://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/in ... ss-drivers as the basis of my work.

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$ sudo lspci -nn |grep Broadcom
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]

I therefore decided to use the bcmwl-kernel-source package.

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$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

However after a reboot, no wireless interface.

I then executed the following and the interface came up but after a reboot it was down again and I find myself having to run these modprobe commands each time to get the interface up.

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$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl
$ sudo modprobe wl

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 7:00 pm

Actually I figured this one out more or less. Problem is with the b43 driver that is loading from /etc/modules despite it being blacklisted in the blacklist-bcm43.conf file.

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$ lspci -vvnn | grep -A 9 Network

Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge

Install modules.

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$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Edit the file /etc/modules and hash out the line b43.

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$ sudo sed -i.bak 's/b43/#b43/g' /etc/modules
$ reboot

Note the driver installation creates the following blacklist, but somehow b43 still loads until I do the workaround just described.

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$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf 
# Warning: This file is autogenerated by bcmwl. All changes to this file will be lost.
blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist bcma

Post by **JeremyB** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 7:20 pm

Can you run this in terminal and post the resulting wireless-info.txt

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wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && chmod +x wireless_script && ./wireless_script

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 6:19 pm

Jeremy,

Its attached, thanks.

Post by **JeremyB** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 6:53 pm

dobriain wrote:Jeremy,

Its attached, thanks.

Thank you for posting that as I was trying to help a person on ubuntuforums and for whatever reason the bcmwl-kernel-source didn't want to work

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:14 pm

I updated the kernel today and the wireless stopped working after the last reboot.

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$ uname -r
3.16.0-28-generic

None of the stuff I tried above works anymore.

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:26 pm

I noticed that the wl module is missing.

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$ sudo modprobe wl
modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found.

Tried installing the broadcom-sta-dkms package but it failed

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$ sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  broadcom-sta-dkms
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 29 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/3,391 kB of archives.
After this operation, 10.1 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously unselected package broadcom-sta-dkms.
(Reading database ... 239705 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../broadcom-sta-dkms_6.30.223.141-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking broadcom-sta-dkms (6.30.223.141-1) ...
Setting up broadcom-sta-dkms (6.30.223.141-1) ...
Loading new broadcom-sta-6.30.223.141 DKMS files...
First Installation: checking all kernels...
Building only for 3.16.0-28-generic
Building initial module for 3.16.0-28-generic
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.16.0-28-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/broadcom-sta/6.30.223.141/build/make.log for more information.

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:12 pm

SOLVED again. Had to downgrade kernel from 3.16.0-28 to 3.13.0-37. As soon as I did that the problem went away.

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$ sudo apt-get remove linux-image-3.16.0.28*
$ sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.16.0.28*
$ sudo apt-get remove linux-image-extra-3.16.0.28*
$ sudo update-grub

$ sudo reboot

After reboot.

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$ uname -r
3.13.0-37-generic

wl is back along with my WiFi access.

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$ lsmod |grep wl
wl                   4207767  0 
lib80211               14381  2 wl,lib80211_crypt_tkip
cfg80211              484040  1 wl

Checking that WiFi is working.

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$ ip link show wlan0 
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 1c:3e:84:ed:99:0b brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

$ sudo iw wlan0 scan | grep signal:
	signal: -66.00 dBm
	signal: -11.00 dBm
	signal: -35.00 dBm
	signal: -71.00 dBm

Post by **JeremyB** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:31 pm

There is a newer version of bcmwl-kernel-source that should work with a 3.16 kernel but it is in the utopic repos http://packages.ubuntu.com/utopic/bcmwl-kernel-source
It has a patch included so it will build on 3.15 and newer kernels

dobriain · Post by **dobriain** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:34 pm

Thanks Jeremy

hrvooje · Post by **hrvooje** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 10:07 pm

Jeremy, can you please help me how to install this driver in Mint 17.1 which you linked? My wifi chip is bcm43228 also. For Ubuntu 14.04.2 I installed it from here http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/r ... _amd64.deb with gdebi

hrvooje · Post by **hrvooje** » Sun Mar 08, 2015 5:15 am

Ok, solved it by applaying all updates and that instaling with GUI addition drivers the driver bcmwl-kernel-source ver. 6.30.223.248+bdcom-0ubuntu0.1

If you would use the kernel 3.16 you have to use driver from utopic repos bcmwl-kernel-source ver. 6.30.223.248+bdcom-0ubuntu1

Dilemmi · Post by **Dilemmi** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:40 pm

My experience is that the sudo modprobe and lspci are good, but the linux system locks up because of the ieee80211 defaulting to mac instead of b43. It's much better and more permanent to avoid the regular sta wireless, it's crap and doesn't have a dongle for speed, or runs at 55% of the full b43, plus you lose true privacy with the mac address. however, this always worked before, you simply need to use the correct video card driver, or the nouveau driver:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
then reboot and your wifi works, run all updates on ethernet or ralink flash usb wifi first lol

. . . i'm pretty sure we all agreed that the sta driver relied on something slow like ndiswrapper, which was baller in its day, but is crap worse than sta now . . .

Dilemmi · Post by **Dilemmi** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:31 am

you're problem is simple with any distro:

For MAC OSX Hardware:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo modprobe b43

For PC, it defaults to MAC and will not work inn 17.1, honestly with macchanger in 16-17.1

no usb wifi, ethernet only
sudo nemo /etc/modprobe.d

select blacklist.conf by double click
then, after the first line having a #, space to a new line
type: mac80211

save

close, close window for su | root via vim or nemo

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

reboot

wifi works permanently and has true b43 with macchanger working properly, and never quits or cuts off

* I realize what happened is they defaulted back to the version of b43 installer from ubuntu 10, pre-unity!! and it just defaults to MAC80211, so a pc runs a mac instruction set for pc nic, and broadcom or b43 for mac is not compatible with pc.

::Appletalk is why::

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