Kali Linux not detecting wireless network in dual boot

Question

Am new to Linux. Just downloaded and installed Kali Linux 1.0.7 yesterday.

I have a wireless connection in the house.

But Kali doesn't seem to be detecting the network. I go to the network icon and see only wired connections there.

When I type ifconfig there appears to be an ethernet connection detected:

$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 20:89:84e5:f0:37
              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 txquelen:1000
              RX bytes:0 (0.0B) TX bytes:0 (0.0B)
              Interrupt:16

lo          Link encap: local Loopback
             inet addr:127.0.1.1 Mask: 255.1.1.0
             inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
             UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
             RX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
             TX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
            collisions:0 txquelen:0
           RX bytes:1200(1.1 KiB) TX bytes:1200(1.1KiB)

But when I type

$ iwconfig

eth0: no wireless extensions

lo: no wireless extensions  

How can I make it detect the connection? Please help. :(

---

EDIT 1:

$ lspci -nnk
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. Device [1969:10a0] (rev 01) Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3802] Kernel Driver in use : alx
02:00.0 Network controller [0280] :Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01) Subsystem:Lenovo Device [17aa:0611] Kernel Driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge  

Solution

Your Wireless Card BCM43142 is not supported by open source driver b43 (See this)
Try installing their proprietary driver Broadcom Linux STA

Follow these steps to Build and install driver (Use root shell sudo -i):

1. Install required packages and tools

   # echo 'deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free' > /etc/apt/sources.list
   # echo 'deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free' > /etc/apt/sources.list
   # apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
   # apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
   # apt-get build-dep linux
   

2. Download proper Broadcom Linux STA driver from here (32-bit or 64-bit) http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

3. Extract the tarball

   # mkdir hybrid_wl
   # cd hybrid_wl
   # tar xzf <path-to-tarball>/hybrid-v35*
   

4. Build Driver as Linux loadable Kernel Module

   # make clean
   # make
   

5. This will build wl.ko file. If this file is not present it means there were errors while building. Now you need to remove conflicting drivers. Check if any of confilicting drivers are present

   # lsmod  | grep "brcmsmac\|b43\|ssb\|bcma\|wl"
   

6. Remove those modules which are present already:

   # rmmod b43
   # rmmod brcmsmac
   # rmmod ssb
   # rmmod bcma
   # rmmod wl
   

   and Blacklist them to prevent loading them in future

   # echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   # echo "blacklist bcma" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   # echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
   # echo "blacklist brcmsmac" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf 
   

7. Install the module

   # insmod lib80211
   # insmod wl.ko
   

8. Wait for few seconds for Network Manager to detect the new driver installation and check if Wifi is functional.

The instructions are taken from here.

Hope this helps. :)

Comments

[Cornelius]

Are you dual-booting with Windows 8/8.1 with fast start-up enabled?

[abhishekkannojia]

Drivers might be missing for your card. Attach output of sudo lshw -class network

[Gaurav Menezes]

Dual Booting with Windows 7 64-bit. As for drivers I'll have to check and see

[Gaurav Menezes]

bash command not found :( Is it lshw? that's the part not found

[abhishekkannojia]

Ok, I guess lshw is not installed. Attach this sudo lspci -nnk

[Gaurav Menezes]

Actually for Kali Linux, even wicd manager is not installed. Is this normal?

[abhishekkannojia]

Yeah, wicd is not installed by default. Default is Gnome's Network Manager. And attach output of sudo lspci -nnk

[Gaurav Menezes]

Here's the portion: 01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. Device [1969:10a0] (rev 01) Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3802] Kernel Driver in use : alx

[abhishekkannojia]

Please update the original post with additional details and Don't post outputs in comments. And I'm interested in Wireless LAN Controller

[Gaurav Menezes]

02:00.0 Network controller [0280] :Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01) Subsystem:Lenovo Device [17aa:0611] Kernel Driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge

[Gaurav Menezes]

In the first step itself it's saying the packages are absent

[abhishekkannojia]

add these lines in /etc/apt/sources.list. deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free