How can I connect to wi-fi with this old laptop?

Question

I recently got an old Dell Latitude-D610 laptop that was running Windows XP, I think, so I completely deleted XP and put Ubuntu on. Before I put Ubuntu on, the wi-fi was working just fine, but now it isn't. In the settings under 'additional drivers' it says "no proprietary drivers are in use on this system" or something like that, and I think that's the problem. I've looked around on this forum and on other places about what to do, and several things said to input the following command:

$ lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

So I did, and it returns this:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit   Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1677] (rev 01)
03:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)

I successfully connected to the Internet by sharing my PC's connection through an Ethernet cable, but I've tried many things suggested in these forums and none of them are working. So please, PLEASE do not mark this question as a duplicate, as I've tried almost everything in questions that are indeed very similar to this one, but nothing's working.

Also, I'm not that great at Ubuntu, so if you tell me to do something, please say exactly where it is or how to do it.

Thanks in advance :D

Did you look at How to Install Broadcom Wireless Drivers (BCM43xx)? — Seth, Jan 13 '14 at 05:00
Yes. I tried loads of things on that page, but it's so disorganized and I'm such a n00b that I'm probably doing all the wrong things. — user229407, Jan 13 '14 at 06:46
And http://askubuntu.com/questions/134516/how-do-i-get-a-broadcom-bcm4306-wireless-card-working — Oli, Jan 13 '14 at 17:07

chili555 · Answer 1 · 2014-01-14T00:32:00.107

0

Please get a temporary wired ethernet connection and open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

Detach the ethernet, reboot and your wireless should be working. If it is not working, run and post: sudo modprobe b43 && dmesg | grep b43

edited Jan 14 '14 at 00:32

answered Jan 13 '14 at 14:11

chili555

60,188

I got the temporary wired Ethernet connection, put both commands in the terminal, and they both appeared to be downloading things. I detached the Ethernet, rebooted the laptop, but for some reason my wireless is STILL not working. When I click the Internet icon near the top-right of the screen, it doesn't have the wireless options like it does on my desktop computer. – user229407 Jan 14 '14 at 00:00
Please see my edit. – chili555 Jan 14 '14 at 00:31

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

0

OH MY GOD, IT'S WORKING!

So all I did was

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source

and apparently that was holding me back, because it's working perfectly now! Honestly, you don't know how relieved I am...

Oh, and it told me to type the previously mentioned command at How do I get a Broadcom BCM4306 Wireless card working?

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

1

answered Jan 14 '14 at 00:59

user229407

21
3

How can I connect to wi-fi with this old laptop?

2 Answers2