Enabling D43 drivers

[akisa]

I've used Linux (most recently Kubuntu) on a number of desktops but finally decided to install on a laptop along side Windows. So I installed Natty and ran into a problem posted by others, the wireless card was not recognized. Turns a laptop into a thin desktop.

Tried I think all the suggestions posted and none worked then remembered that when trying it via LiveCD the wireless card worked. To make a long story short.

Computer: Dell Latitude D420
Wireless card: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

lsmod for LiveCD showed modules for the wireless card as: b43, cfg80211, mac80211, and ssb
lsmod for the installed Natty showed modules for the card as: wl (Broadcom STA drivers). [beats me as to why they would be different]

Using b43-fwcutter I put the b43 drivers into /lib/firmware. I then deactivated the Broadcom STA drivers.

I can get the wireless card to work using:
~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb
~$ sudo modprobe b43

but this is temporary and I have to re-enter after re-booting. What I've read on the web implies that Additional Drivers should be able to find the b43 drivers so that I can activate them permanently. However, it only shows the Broadcom STA drivers.

Is there a different directory I should have put the drivers? Is there a way to change where Additional Drivers looks? Is there another option, either GUI or CLI that I can use to activate the b43 drivers so they will work all the time?

Thanks.

[claydoh]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

Some chips work better with the STA and others with the b43 firmwares. It is hit an miss right now, hopefully more broadcom chipsets will gain open drivers.

But to prevent a module from loading, look at /etc/modprobe.d/ and either create a new file (say, broadcom.conf) , or add the following to the blacklist.conf file there:

 blacklist ssb

[woodsmoke]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

It is just possible that an important point that Akisa made was why the drivers on the live cd are different from the install drivers.

woodsmoke

[oshunluvr]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

I have a very similar model Dell D830 and the STA drivers worked perfectly.

[akisa]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

@oshunluvr

Yea, but I seem to be one of those people for whom things don't always work quite as advertised. When I upgraded one of my desktops from meerkat to narwhale using Kpackagekit it trashed my grub,cfg. So I had to re-install grub from the LiveCD (fortunately not the entire partition). Things happen. Unfortunately, Broadcom STA happens to not work on my computer. Whether that's a D420 thing or the fact that I still have a Windows partition...maybe somebody knows, but I don't.

[claydoh]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

I think, and please someone correct me, that the kernel that boots the livecd is not exactly 100% the same as the installed kernel. The problem with a lot of broadcom chips is that there are now 2 different drivers available for them in some cases (the older b43, and the new STA), and the installed kernel is trying to load both. Some realtek chips were having this same issue in Maverick.

I don't know where the bug should be reported (probably under 'linux') but it really should be using the same driver as in the live session, unless the kernel in the live session simply doesn't have the STA drivers included in there, and so does not have any conflicts. it is a nasty bug nonetheless.

It doesn't help any that from my browsing on the issue, it is fairly impossible to tell which driver works for which chip, even if they are the same - some report STA working, others report b43.

[el_koraco]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

Broadcom has also been working with the kernel devs on releasing the new open source driver for the notoriuos chips, which I think natty tries to use by default. The end result is kinda messy in some cases, although in others it works ootb.

[akisa]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

Thank you Claydoh for your posting above about blacklisting. It didn't answer my question directly but led me to the right place. Went to /etc/modprobe.d/ and found a blacklist file in place that did the opposite of what I wanted. That is it blacklisted b43 and ssb and allowed the Broadcom STA. I just commented out the drivers I wanted and inserted a line to blacklist wl. Now my laptop boots and loads the drivers for my wireless card and all works well.

Re: you other comment about the two different drivers for the broadcom chip and sometimes one works and sometimes the other. Possibly related to rev #? My chip is BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01).

[ScottyK]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

I've got a Dell Vostro 1500 with the BCM4311 drivers. With 10.10 and 10.04 the wireless worked perfectly, but on a update install of 11.04 I had no wireless. Looks like the solution is right here. Going to install 11.04 on the test hard drive in the machine and see if this fixes it. If so then I'll finally be ready to upgrade to 11.04.

[losingle]

Re: Enabling D43 drivers

When I first installed 11.04 I was unaware that kernel driver was available via Additional drivers. So I installed the aforementioned b43 driver and noticed although my w/l worked it was hozed. Checking the listing I noticed that I had some conflicts between wl.ko and b43 (two driver dont work very good). I tried removing the b43 and blacklisting it but it would not blacklist. Each time i rebooted their it was still there. I had some other problems so just went with a fresh install. The info was available on ubuntu forum about the kernel driver.