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The notebook in the title runs a dual boot with said Ubuntu version 14.04 and Windows 7.

After trivially installing drivers on windows, the wireless device works splendidly.

On Ubuntu however, installing drivers and rebooting does not help that much. I followed this awesome guide: Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers. This helped a little in understanding, but didn't help regarding my issue.

One of the problems might be that I did not start with a fresh system.

First thing I then did was:

sudo apt-get purge firmware-b43-installer
sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source

Starting from this point I know the device and the PCI ID of the wireless device. I can see the device in lspci only:

$ lspci -nn -d 14e4: 
24:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228
802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]

If the lsusb output helps:

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0a5c:21e1 Broadcom Corp. HP Portable SoftSailing

As mentioned in the guide above (I consulted the table with packages for certain PCI IDs) I then tried to install bcmwl-kernel-source again:

$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

The important error:

Building initial module for 4.4.0-31-generic
ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/bcmwl-kernel-source.0.crash'
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.4.0-31-generic (i686)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.248+bdcom/build/make.log for more information.
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:809 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='wl'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'wl': Function not implemented
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:959 command_do() Error running install command for wl
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'wl': Operation not permitted
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Trigger für initramfs-tools (0.103ubuntu4.10) werden verarbeitet ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-31-generic

By now it's clear 'wl' is missing, but I don't really know how to get it into the system.

Another information: The notebook comes with a WiFi-Button above the keyboard which I pressed thoroughly - I can enable/disable Bluetooth connection with this, but it has no effect (yet) on WiFi.

modprobe wl obviously does not work. The exact same errors will be shown when installing bcmwl-kernel-source.

rfkill list does only show

0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

What besides my lack of insight can be wrong? After removing firmware-b43-installer and bcmwl-kernel-source can there be some other package be interfering in the process? Any further ideas on making the wireless device working would be much appreciated!

Faenrig
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  • Notice that your terminal output says: "Consult /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.248+bdcom/build/make.log for more information." Let's do just that. Please run: cat /var/lib/dkms/bcmwl/6.30.223.248+bdcom/build/make.log and paste the result here and give us the link: http://paste.ubuntu.com – chili555 Apr 17 '18 at 13:06
  • Sure, here you go: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/qsCDJTjJk2/ This is partly german. Please let me know if this is a problem. – Faenrig Apr 18 '18 at 06:15
  • May I see: sudo dpkg -s gcc-base | grep Status Possible reference: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2307139 – chili555 Apr 19 '18 at 14:50
  • gcc-base is not installed. Following the post you mentioned I looked for build-essential, too. This package was missing as well. When I try to look gcc-base up via dpkg -S gcc-base or installing it via apt-get install gcc-base it says the package has not been found. – Faenrig Apr 20 '18 at 05:59
  • I found gcc-4.8-base to be installed. Sadly that doesn't help sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source to work though. – Faenrig Apr 20 '18 at 06:18

2 Answers2

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Your readings above state:

Building initial module for 4.4.0-31-generic

However, the crash log you pasted says:

make: Verzeichnis »/usr/src/linux-headers-4.4.0-119-generic« wird betreten

We suspect that Update Manager had installed the -119 kernel version but you had not yet rebooted; hence, your running kernel version was -31.

Please reboot. Next, verify that your running kernel version is -119:

uname -r

If so, then do:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source

Any improvement? Paste any errors or make.log: http://paste.ubuntu.com

chili555
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  • I made sure the kernel runs on -119. However, the same errors emerge: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/ZsTYp28tMd/ – Faenrig Apr 19 '18 at 05:14
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To conclude my own question, first I'm thankful for @chili555's help. But I was able to fix my issue myself after looking into it again today.

Install/reinstall Linux headers (as they weren't available for me through apt-get, I downloaded them from packages.ubuntu.com, viable up to this day and installed the package)

sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.13.0-151-generic_3.13.0-151.201_i386.deb

Uninstall the bcmwl-kernel-source:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

Modprobe the b43 module:

modprobe b43

Install b43 firmware

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

Reboot the system

sudo reboot

This led my Ubuntu 14.04 system to finally actively search for Wifi and connect to them. It works fine.

As I said in my question this is one possible solution for HP ProBook 6570b Notebooks with a Broadcom BCM43228 [14e4:4359] wireless card.

If anyone wants to additionally give a possible explanation to why the module wl was never found and could not be added to modprobe, or why the bcmwl-kernel-source package did not work rather than the b43 firmware, this might be helpful for people stumbling over this entry.

Faenrig
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