Getting Wireless to Work, Dell Inspiron E1505 (bcm4311)

Question

Ok. so I know there are about a million threads on this subject already, but NOTHING has worked for me. About to lose my mind here, if someone can please help I will be eternally grateful.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 wireless controller. I can't get it to work.

I've followed the steps outlined on the following sites:

How can I get Broadcom BCM4311 Wireless working?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2072887
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

and more. Nothing is working, and I'm on the verge of giving up. As a Linux newbie I can only imagine I'm missing something stupidly obvious. If someone could give me a step-by-step instruction for going from a completely fresh 12.10 install to having a working wifi connection I would be (as mentioned earlier) eternally grateful. Please let me know if anyone needs more info.

Solution

On a clean install, connect an ethernet cable, open a terminal window, and run

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

Then run echo b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modules to make sure the module is autoloaded. Reboot, and if all goes well, the wireless should work.

Comments

[mikewhatever]

Seems like all you need is sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter to install the driver, and reboot. Needless to say, you'll need a wired connection for the command to work, and in case there are any errors, post them.

[Jason Hamje]

@mikewhatever: just did a fresh install, ran that line on terminal and got no errors. Unplugged ethernet, rebooted -- nothing. if I run iwconfig I get: lo no wireless extensions, eth1 no wireless extensions. I've tried hitting the Fn+F2 key which is supposed to turn wireles on and off and it makes no difference. Any other ideas?

[mikewhatever]

Check if the b43 module is loaded: lsmod | grep b43. If not, load it with sudo modprobe b43. If you want serious help, please add the output of lsmod and lspci to the question.

[web.learner]

Also make sure your hardware switch it in the "On" position.

[ubfan1]

Please run lspci -vvnn -d 14e4: and confirm that the pci-id of the chip is NOT [14e4:4313] According to wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 That chip takes the wl driver and not the b43.

[Jason Hamje]

@mikewhatever that did it. I could kiss you. Question, it looks like when I reboot I have to sudo modprobe b43 each time, how can I make it load automatically?

[mikewhatever]

Yep, that's also easy. Just run echo b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modules. That adds b43 to /etc/modules to autoload it. I've put all the steps into an answer below.

[Admin]

This answer is WORKING THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 days I am looking for a working answer and finaly a got it :)

[Eliah Kagan]

possible duplicate of Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers

[Jason Hamje]

thanks again, sir. eternal gratitude. Hope someone else finds this useful as well

[mikewhatever]

Most welcome, glad I could help.