Mint 17 XFCE and Broadcom 4313 wireless card

[br1anstorm]

I have searched this and other forums and there are so many threads about Linux problems with Broadcom wireless drivers (and so many suggested solutions) that it's hard to track down advice which might apply to individual problems.

My question is: how can I get Mint 17 XFCE to work with the Broadcom 4313 wifi card in my Samsung RF511 laptop?

The essential facts of my situation are as follows. I have Mint 17 XFCE 32-bit installed on a USB stick. This is because I am still at the exploratory stage with Linux distros, and because I use three different laptops. It suits me - at this stage - to run Mint from a USB stick rather than install it as a dual boot on each of the three laptops (two Dells which have WinXP and a Samsung RF511which has Win7). I simply choose (F12 on the Dells, Esc on the Samsung) at boot-up to load Mint from the USB stick. But note: these are not Live sessions. I'm simply running Mint from an external drive.

Mint runs fine on both the Dells (8600 and 1520). Both have Broadcom wireless chipsets (can't immediately recall which ones... can check if need be); but wifi connection works automatically and well on both. That's the good news.

The bad news is that on my Samsung RF511, when running Mint, the wifi connection is at best erratic and most of the time simply doesn't connect at all.

I am still a newbie and not all that familiar with terminal commands. But I can just about work with Synaptic Package Manager, for what that's worth.....In researching the Broadcom "problem", I found several forum posts which seemed relevant. But it seems that there are various ways of resolving the problem, and that's why I'm posting (to get advice before I start messing around with drivers etc).

Following the advice in this Ask Ubuntu forum thread http://askubuntu.com/questions/249096/n ... sung-rf511 I have established via the terminal that my Samsung laptop has the Broadcom BCM 4313 802.11bgn wireless network card, and the pci.id is 14e4:4727 (rev01). The kernel driver in use is bcma-pci-bridge (but it clearly isn't doing the job!).

That same thread outlines the different options for installing drivers for Broadcom wifi cards. It appears that - first - one has to choose between a Broadcom STA proprietary driver or one of several open-source drivers. Fair enough. But it then gets complicated ..... because to enable certain drivers to work, you then have to blacklist or uninstall, other drivers (this worries me.... see below for explanation).

Anyway, to help in making the initial choice (proprietary or open source) I followed links to a very useful and detailed thread here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... st12972388. The advice is that the choice depends on the pci.id, and there is a helpful table. [EDIT: See next post - immediately below - which reveals that there is more than one table and conflicting advice, in another Ubuntu forum, on what driver is required].

More bad news. In the case of my Samsung Broadcom wifi card, the pci.id is 14e4:4727 - which according to the table in that thread is a "Special Case"! Depending on whether the Mint version is based on 12.04 or 14.04, there are different recommendations. As Mint 17 is based on 14.04, apparently the Broadcom card needs "driver combination bcma and brcmsmac, which should both be installed by default in the package linux-firmware. In a few cases, it is necessary to blacklist b43 and ssb." There is then a warning that "In some cases, blacklisting ssb will disable your Broadcom ethernet card". Great - that's not what I need!

Well, according to Synaptic I have linux-firmware installed. So why does the terminal show that the kernel driver in use is bcma-pci-bridge? I also have b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer already installed. Can't find or identify ssb or bcma or brcmsmac via Synaptic at all (and I don't know how to check or find details of such things via the terminal).

So where does that leave me? It seems that I should already have the right package (linux-firmware) in my Mint 17 install to make the Broadcom 4313 in my Samsung work. But it ain't happening (this "bridge" thing is in use....why?). I am also worried that if I start blacklisting (blocking?) other drivers then I may lose my ethernet connection. Worse than that, since I plan to use this Mint 17 USB stick in three different computers, I'm concerned that if I do whatever is required to enable Mint to work wirelessly in the Samsung, it then won't work any longer in the other two laptops (because I may have changed or blocked whatever drivers they currently seem to be using successfully).

It all seems a bit of a mess. The source of the problem may well be Broadcom's multitude of wifi chipsets/cards; but the net effect is to make Mint (and I guess any other Ubuntu-based distro?) inflexible and troublesome to run in the way I am hoping and trying to do.

Any advice would be welcome. But please - in plain language, as I am still new to all this.

[br1anstorm]

In my original post (above) I linked to, and quoted, a detailed post by chili555 in the Ubuntu forums which included a table indicating that a Broadcom 4313 wireless chipset with the pci.id 14e4:4727 needed the combination of bcma and brcmsmac drivers to work.

Hey ho, I did some more browsing, and found another very similar and equally detailed post in the AskUbuntu forum which also had advice on Broadcom wireless drivers and a detailed table. The thread is here http://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/in ... ss-drivers.

Now the table in this post says that if the Broadcom wifi card has the pci.id 14e4:4727, or 14e4:4727 (rev 01) - which mine has - then the driver(s) required is the bcmwl-kernel-source package.

So which do I believe? And how do I go about installing the correct driver(s) without interfering with whichever other ones might already be installed?

Linux is wonderful........ but at times it seems like d******d hard work just to get the basics to operate properly.

[austin.texas]

So which do I believe? And how do I go about installing the correct driver(s) without interfering with whichever other ones might already be installed?

With a choice between chili555 and others, I would go with what chili555 says.

[br1anstorm]

With a choice between chili555 and others, I would go with what chili555 says.

Hi there austin.texas.... and festive season's greetings!

I can't comment on the individual credentials of chili555 and others, but in fact it may not be quite an either/or choice. I now notice a couple of interesting and significant things.

The chili555 post in the ubuntuforums.org thread was dated March 30th, 2014. The other post, by Luis Alvarado in the Ask Ubuntu forums, actually acknowledges and credits chili555 for most of the work and information on this pesky subject..... and this latter post and the table it includes, are updated as at November 17 2015.

So while chili555 may have been correct back in early 2014 to recommend bcma and brcmsmac from the linux-firmware package for my particular Broadcom 4313, it seems entirely likely that by November 2015 the driver table which chili555 prepared may have been updated by Luis A or others to reflect changes in the chipset and/or drivers. So the later advice to use bcmwl-kernel-source may be better?

Ther's another thing, which Linux experts may quickly be able to answer. I saw something somewhere which suggested that bcma and brcmsmac were open source or linux-developed drivers, and that bcmwl-kernel-source may be a package which contains, or is, a proprietary Broadcom (STA?) driver. If that's true, then I wonder if it makes any difference which I choose? And if I go with the latter, is is simply a matter of downloading and installing that bcmwl-kernel-source via Synaptic? Or do I have to mess about with purging,uninstalling, or blacklisting, other stuff before I do so?

[Pjotr]

Try the chili555 solution first. He's without any doubt the most knowledgeable expert in wireless issues, in the entire Ubuntu and Mint community. It's the safest bet.

[Hoser Rob]

Ditto on chili555.

Your problem seems to be that you're using guides written for ubuntu releases different from the one your Mint is based on. Bad Idea. A solution that worked in 12.10 cannot be counted to work in 14.04. It likely won't.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks for those comments, guys....

Another day, and the sun has come out. When I wrote my original horribly-long post about this, I was exasperated by the inability of the Mint OS on my USB stick to make, or hold, a wifi connection in my Samsung laptop.

Because the laptop has a Broadcom wifi chipset, I then set off down the troubleshooting and research road, as described.

I have not made any changes to the computer, nor to the OS installation on the USB. I haven't even rebooted my wireless router (which serves other computers in the house. But after a 24-hour break, I have plugged in and fired up my Mint USB stick on the Samsung laptop again. And guess what: it instantly made a wifi connection which has remained rock solid for the past hour or more. I have clicked the wifi icon and looked at "Connection information". It tells me the interface is 802.11 WiFi (wlan2), but beside the "Driver" heading is just a blank space (on some other distros doing this non-terminal check shows which driver is being used).

Go figure....as they say.

Still leaves me feeling a bit nervous. I'm happy right now. But in some ways I'd still like to know why the wifi connection wouldn't work before. I'm left fearing that it will all go pear-shaped again without warning tomorrow.... or next week.... or next month. We shall have to see. Perhaps this is all part of the Linux way of life?

[JeremyB]

Thanks for those comments, guys....

Another day, and the sun has come out. When I wrote my original horribly-long post about this, I was exasperated by the inability of the Mint OS on my USB stick to make, or hold, a wifi connection in my Samsung laptop.

Because the laptop has a Broadcom wifi chipset, I then set off down the troubleshooting and research road, as described.

I have not made any changes to the computer, nor to the OS installation on the USB. I haven't even rebooted my wireless router (which serves other computers in the house. But after a 24-hour break, I have plugged in and fired up my Mint USB stick on the Samsung laptop again. And guess what: it instantly made a wifi connection which has remained rock solid for the past hour or more. I have clicked the wifi icon and looked at "Connection information". It tells me the interface is 802.11 WiFi (wlan2), but beside the "Driver" heading is just a blank space (on some other distros doing this non-terminal check shows which driver is being used).

Go figure....as they say.

Still leaves me feeling a bit nervous. I'm happy right now. But in some ways I'd still like to know why the wifi connection wouldn't work before. I'm left fearing that it will all go pear-shaped again without warning tomorrow.... or next week.... or next month. We shall have to see. Perhaps this is all part of the Linux way of life?

In some cases the Broadcom 4313 will not be stable unless b43 and ssb are blacklisted. The Broadcom STA driver should support the 4313 as https://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11 says it does but if

Code: Select all

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

shows the ethernet using the b44 module, I would avoid it as it will blacklist b44 and ethernet will not work.

I am another who admires Chili555's posts and they usually work and I only say usually because of changes in new kernels might make older info useless