13

I have a Dell Vostro 3460 with one of the new Broadcom 43142 hybrid Wireless/Bluetooth chips. Neither the proprietary driver (wl) nor the b43 driver supports this.

lspci -nn gives me

01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet [1969:1091] (rev 10)

I manage to install 1969:1091 with compat-wireless' alx, but could not find any alternative for this Broadcom 4365...

Do you guys know any driver for this controller? I am seriously considering to buy a compatible USB card?

ish
  • 139,926
Rodrigo Farias
  • 307
  • 1
    ^^^not a duplicate, because no current public driver, i.e. wl, b43, etc. supports this new chipset. – ish Aug 15 '12 at 04:15
  • For 13.04, this works - http://askubuntu.com/questions/289609/dell-3721-wifi-problem-ubuntu-13-04/289614#289614 – mac Jun 19 '13 at 13:31
  • Solution for 14.10 (64-bit) or 15.04 (64-bit) here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/553615/cant-enable-the-proprietary-drivers-for-broadcom-bcm43142-wireless-after-instal – david6 Apr 25 '15 at 05:04

3 Answers3

13

12.04

Drivers for this are only officially available with the Vostro 3460 as provided by Dell.

However, based on the instructions and the Dell deb from the Vostro 3560 provided in this forum thread, I have created a modified DEB file that compiles and installs the driver on 12.04 (see thread for 11.10 link).

First, install the prerequisites by opening a terminal and pasting, one line at a time:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers$(uname -r | grep -Po "\-[a-z].*")
sudo apt-get install build-essential dkms

Please download the appropriate DEB file from Dropbox here:

Open a terminal, and install it with sudo dpkg -i.

Hopefully it works!

Edit: 12.04 now has an updated bcmwl-kernel-source package that reportedly supports BCM43142. bug#923809, comment 15

Community
  • 1
ish
  • 139,926
  • Thanks for replying @izy. Is there any alternative driver for 12.04/10 32 bit? – Rodrigo Farias Aug 13 '12 at 05:02
  • The linked file should compile on 32-bit. Doesn't it? – ish Aug 13 '12 at 05:03
  • I get a dpkg error: package architecture (amd64) does not match system (i386) – Rodrigo Farias Aug 13 '12 at 05:05
  • @rodrigo: please see edited answer, download the 32-bit package and you should be good to go. – ish Aug 13 '12 at 09:04
  • sorry for the delay to get back on this, and thanks for providing the 32-bit version. I tried with both Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.10, but got similar dpkg errors: .../build/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:50:24: fatal error: asm/system.h: N compilation terminated. Am I missing anything? – Rodrigo Farias Aug 15 '12 at 03:51
  • @rodrigo: You seem to be missing the linux headers. Please install them with sudo apt-get install linux-headers$(uname -r | grep -Po "\-[a-z].*") and then try again. – ish Aug 15 '12 at 04:08
  • I have the headers. Will try with Ubuntu 12.04 32/64-bit later on today. – Rodrigo Farias Aug 15 '12 at 13:22
  • I installed 32-bit/i386 on 12.04 but the wireless network selection was not activated. I still have Bluetooth and Wired connection only. Is there anything that should be installed with this driver? – Zelid Aug 17 '12 at 06:03
  • I was finally able to test this driver with a 3.2.0-30-generic x86_64. It was successfully installed. Thanks again. – Rodrigo Farias Sep 15 '12 at 19:01
  • When upgrading to quantal (12.10) I got an error about the wireless-bcm43142-oneiric-dkms. Apparently it has something to do with the kernel: http://askubuntu.com/a/195598/22147. Would it be possible to update this answer to also include 12.10? – Koen Oct 19 '12 at 09:52
  • Thanks izx. I got the package installed successfully, but still i am not able to start the wireless card – codeomnitrix Mar 18 '13 at 16:40
  • For Ubuntu 12.04 I found this page: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201202-10527/ meaning, there is a certified release now. – Martin - マーチン Dec 11 '13 at 03:04
11

12.10

Please verify your pci.id with a terminal command:

    lspci -nn

Is it 14e4:4365? I am not sure it is even possible in a 32-bit system. If you have a 64-bit system and the device I mentioned, then I suggest this package: http://jas.gemnetworks.com/debian/pool/main/w/wireless-bcm43142/wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb

First install the prerequisites:

    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms

Then install the package with:

    cd Desktop   <--or wherever you downloaded the deb
    sudo dpkg -i wire*.deb
    sudo modprobe wl
Community
  • 1
chili555
  • 60,188
1

I tried following method to install Broadcom wireless Driver with Dell Vostro 3500 in Ubuntu/Xubuntu 12.04 (64 bit) Linux.

First of all check your wireless chipset model number,

lspci | grep Network

Install following prerequisites,

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms

Download following package and install,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6E3iEzJp74uSGZjVDF2YnM5eFE/view

Open the following file:

gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Add the following lines:

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ndiswrapper

Comment the following line,

# blacklist bcm43xx

Restart your laptop and check whether the wireless is working or not.

David Foerster
  • 36,264
  • 56
  • 94
  • 147
Vimal Kumar
  • 41