Broadcom BCM4312 802.11 card in old laptop

[rec9140]

I am trying to repurpose an older laptop for a specific task... and having wireless access with it would be a plus..

Have not had to deal with this crap in 20+ years of Linux....This is not the place, or time for a discussion on OEM drivers, OEM's such as broadcom, I've got plenty of axes to grind with them and others not just related to Linux.. so lets just table that.

The LIVE USB showed it was not working with 802.11 setups.. ie: no interface, and dmesg had an error about firmware...

Cleanse HD, install 24.04.. bring it up to date.. and attempt to resolve this.


So details below, any one got input on resolving this Yes I might just get a USB thingy and stick in it.. thinking about, https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Nano-.../dp/B0CX7K326J Anyone using this?

Although it seems this needs outside drivers too..IF, IF I go the USB route, then it MUST support 5GHz. Its pointless to replace the 802.11 if I am just going to continue with the polluted 2.4Ghz...

Its really the principal of this at this point....Like I said I thought and I had left all these sorts of stuff in the dust decades ago....yes this is older hardware, it has a specific task in mind.. mostly some number crunching for some things...it doesn't need to play 2160p video etc.. and I doubt it would anyway...

But... any hints on this

Thanks!

Details follow:

So the dmesg error to start with on the LIVE/INSTALLED is:

Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, ID 0x2062, Revision 2, Version 0
[ 37.181288] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[ 37.185249] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PNL ]
[ 37.199559] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode15.fw failed with error -2
[ 37.199732] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode15.fw failed with error -2
[ 37.200017] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode15.fw failed with error -2
[ 37.200111] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode15.fw failed with error -2
[ 37.200119] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found
[ 37.200185] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw" not found
[ 37.200235] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version
. Please carefully read all instructions on this website
​

So the listed link above, is just garbage.. but other searches listed stuff

I installed

Installed the following packages:
b43-fwcutter (1:019-11build1)
firmware-b43-installer (1:019-11build1)

broadcom-sta-dkms (6.30.223.271-23ubuntu1)

​

No joy on this .. dmesg changes to this:

[ 34.384580] wl: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
[ 34.384591] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[ 34.384617] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 34.384622] wl: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
[ 34.384625] wl: module license taints kernel.

Still NO JOY.

Hopefully some of this hardware info will assist:

$ lspci -nnk | grep 0280 -A3
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000c]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: ssb, wl



$ lsmod | grep wl
wl 6488064 0
cfg80211 1339392 1 wl


sudo modprobe wl && sudo dmesg | grep wl

[ 34.384580] wl: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
[ 34.384591] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[ 34.384622] wl: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
[ 34.384625] wl: module license taints kernel.
[ 35.914882] i915 display info: has_cdclk_crawl: no


$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

enp6s0 no wireless extensions.

virbr0 no wireless extensions.

~$ sudo dmesg | grep b43
[ 2.136526] b43-pci-bridge 0000:04:00.0: Sonics Silicon Backplane found on PCI device 0000:04:00.0

[RedGreen925]

Searching on "BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] linux" in Google leads to this page which says they got the wireless working.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=87910

[Schwarzer Kater]

Either install firmware-b43-installer (b43-fwcutter is a dependency of it and does not need to be installed seperately) or broadcom-sta-dkms - not both as this will not work in my experience.
I my experience broadcom-sta-dkms was to be preferred as with firmware-b43-installer I had problems with 5 GHz networks…

[rec9140]

Searching on "BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] linux" in Google leads to this page which says they got the wireless working.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=87910

Thanks, that appears to be what I've done already with B43 etc.. and its a no joy on that... as rfkilll doesn't show anything..

and YES just for edification, I hit the "wireless" on/off button on the keyboard to see if that had any change in the mess... no joy.

Either install firmware-b43-installer (b43-fwcutter is a dependency of it and does not need to be installed seperately) or broadcom-sta-dkms - not both as this will not work in my experience.
I my experience broadcom-sta-dkms was to be preferred as with firmware-b43-installer
I had problems with 5 GHz networks…

I think THIS MAY be the issue.. as it doesn't.. and this card is too old for 5GHz, sadly... but again, for what I need it to do, I can live with it on 2.4Ghz...

Thanks, I will have to do a purge on the b43 packages, and probably best on the sta dkms... Honestly I though all this crap on these went away with this in the kernel years ago...

I will give this a shot later, when I have time to play.. THANKS.

[rec9140]

Either install firmware-b43-installer (b43-fwcutter is a dependency of it and does not need to be installed seperately) or broadcom-sta-dkms - not both as this will not work in my experience.
I my experience broadcom-sta-dkms was to be preferred as with firmware-b43-installer I had problems with 5 GHz networks…

NO Joy after removing b43, and using only... sta-dkms....

Any ideas?

[krodrig2]

This is what i did to fix this problem, sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source , then my wireless was working fine. I also had a lot of missing icons or doc wigits, so i ran this to fix that problem, sudo apt full-upgrade, or you can just do, sudo apt dist-upgrade. That fixed my problems.

[krodrig2]

I wanted to note that after iI ran sudo apt --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source I then ran this code to activate the wifi nic, nmtui-connect

[krodrig2]

This is my first time using Neon Kde, and i was not sure that i wanted to mess around with it after boot, I normally just move on to the next after the install and wifi, gui, along with the nvidia driver not working correctly but this is a test os at the moment and after getting the wifi and desktop working correctly it is running very nicely...the only thing i would like to fix is the default driver for the Nvidia gpu but it seems to run great so fare with the defaults...it look's like kde neon dropped Nvidia's proprietary NVIDIA drivers. I am running this on a 2009 Macbook pro with a Nvidia C79 GeForce 9400M just about all the other distros have the nvidia driver for that card but i am sure i can install the driver for it and if that goes well i think this will be a great distro.

[rec9140]

I wanted to note that after iI ran sudo apt --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source I then ran this code to activate the wifi nic, nmtui-connect

Well, I am still NO JOY on this internal card... I REPLACED or added a USB TP-Link one, compiled a driver, done, it works.. I can use the laptop portable this way...

I'd like to have a more "elegant" solution ie: interal card v. using one of the USB ports, but the nano style device does mitigate some of this.... again... its not a work horse situation.... It is more a main use for a specific task (not portable/mobile) and user(s) and some portable uses if needed...

This may be the MAGIC SILVER BULLET to get the drivers (bcmwl-kernel) hmmm.. I didn't use source I used the other one.. hmmm.. maybe its 2 parts this v. the other one and nmtui-connect as it acts like the card is not "activated" and the keyboard button doesn't do a thing... nope not disabled in BIOS.. there is some setting in there that can control that, but it is enabled... and lsusb does see the card, but acts like its "off."

Since I wiped and clean installed to get the new TP-Link drivers working since I felt there was a lot of sludge left from trying the bcm stuff... I might try again with the live USB to see if the source branch works better and the nmtui-connect turns it on..

But as of right now.. I am NO JOY on the bcmwl-kernel at least for me...and I sort of need to move on with this project and I've got a working solution..maybe if I decide to play some more with a optical drive replacement to SSD on it I will try again... Not sure.. got a couple things in mind.. did a RAM Upgrade for it, makes things a lot better hey its old as it is, and if I'd known I could have swapped the optical drive to a carrier for an SSD (taking this apart to get the HD out and swap is a MESS! Its not open cover , slide out, nope its buried which is why this project was back burnered till I could back up old data on it) .. might even look to replace the half sized mini PCIe card to something else..

Just really thought all this crap had gone away.. clearly I've just been picking better hardware the last few decades...

[Snowhog]

So the listed link above, is just garbage

How so? Did you try what is stated there? I read:

List of hardware

To check for a present hardware model execute following command:

lspci -nn -d 14e4:

If the chipset isn't listed, check if it's connected via SSB (Sonics Silicon Backplane). Such connected chipsets only become visible after the ssb kernel module has been loaded.

Your laptops Broadcom BCM4312 802.11 card is connected via SSB (Sonics Silicon Backplane) as stated in sudo dmesg | grep b43 in your first post. So according to the information in the link, you need to load the ssb kernel module.

My Google searches find (in order):

1. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=176625
2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/broadcom_wireless
3. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=201527
4. http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.ne...entioned_above (from the link in 3. above)