6

Following on from my other question about our new Samsung Q330, I've noticed that the wireless is incredibly flakey. It can connect but after a little use, especially if it does a lot of downloading at once (read: install something from the Software Centre), the connection stops working.

Network Manager still see the connection, there's just no network throughput. I've simple tests like pinging other local network hosts and they just fail.

The Samsung Q330 has a Broadcom BCM4313 wifi card (it's proper ID: 14e4:4727) and it's running on the Broadcom STA drivers that Jockey suggests (it didn't work at all without this).

I did try installing b43-fwcutter but this just didn't do anything. I was expecting a configuration screen to come up (to select a firmware) but it never did.

This page suggests the newer brcm80211 driver might be able to help, but I don't know how to install that. If you think this is the right route, please let me know how one goes about installing it.

Community
  • 1
Oli
  • 293,335
  • I've also got BCM4313 in my laptop. The only noticeable issue I faced is that even with my network set to be available to all users, there's a pause after log in before it will connect. How well is brcm80211 supported by Broadcom? Does it cover all the abilities/features of the driver? – Oxwivi Feb 22 '11 at 15:18
  • On 10.10's Additional Drivers, the driver description didn't exactly mention BCM4313, and I don't think the complete support is the root of the problems. On Natty, Additional Drivers suggest brcm80211 (and it mentions BCM4313) which simply works great. While I cannot assure you that it will work with 10.10, you can get the driver package in the restricted pool in Natty's CD. – Oxwivi Mar 19 '11 at 11:58
  • @Oxwivi the drivers on Natty (brcm80211) are open source, in-tree kernel drivers. Yeah, they work great. I use them in Maverick by just using a home-compiled 2.6.38 kernel. – Oli Mar 20 '11 at 20:23

2 Answers2

2

OLi I found this tutorial which install the same card which you have in ubuntu forums .. i think is the right solution for your problem :

New brcm80211 driver guide for Broadcom wireless cards

Updated :

"Download and copy the device's firmware", i have the solution for that :

  • We also need to install the firmware files in the proper directory. These can be found in the other repository (linux-firmware). (More information can be found in the linux-next/drivers/staging/brcm80211/README file.)

when you execute these 2 commands :

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git

it created two folders in your home directory :

1.- linux-firmware

2.- linux-next

these files are located in :

cd ~/linux-firmware/bcrm

enter image description here

Make sure the proprietary broadcom driver is not loaded

Community
  • 1
hhlp
  • 42,002
  • 1
    They haven't updated the section "Download and copy the device's firmware". The instructions don't tell you where you get the firmware from... Which, I believe is fairly critical to the whole thing working – Oli Feb 22 '11 at 13:49
  • @Oli i edited my question with the solution of your problem ... – hhlp Feb 22 '11 at 18:34
0

Install the "bcmwl-kernel-source" package, reboot and run the restricted driver utility again... you should see the proprietary driver available, acivate it.

nejode
  • 501