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I have a dell Inspiron 11 with the Broadcom 802.11 driver.

Playing with Ubuntu 15.04 live cd it works ok. I have to select additional drivers, check on "Using Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source from bcmwl-kernel-source (proprietary)" and everything works ok.

But after installing Ubuntu to my hard drive I can no longer use it. I check the driver, but after a few seconds the window shows up as if it woudln't have been selected. I guess that if must raise some kind of error that just get lost.

Anybody knows how to solve it, or at least how to do it manually so that I can see what is the error?

More over, where should I report this bug so that it can be corrected on future versions? I'm sure it must be pretty easy to fix because on the livecd it works fine.

BTW, every distro based con 15.04 has the same problem. Right now I'm using Elementary Freya, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and everything works fine.

$ lspci | grep Network
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
$ uname -a
Linux freya 3.16.0-38-generic #52~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 8 09:43:57 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
opensas
  • 3,187
  • Just for the record, I tried it wth Ubuntu 17.04, and the same problem still arises, luckly the accepted answer is still ok – opensas Apr 30 '17 at 05:05
  • Unfortunately, with ubuntu 17.10 (mate edition) the problem is still around... – opensas Oct 29 '17 at 08:30

1 Answers1

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If you still have the install DVD or USB, then you can find the correct driver and its prerequisite there. Navigate to pool > restricted > b > bcmwl and drag and drop the deb file to your desktop. Now navigate to pool > main > d > dkms and drag and drop dkms to your desktop. Now install both with:

cd ~/Desktop
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Load the driver:

sudo modprobe wl

Your wireless should now be working.

If there is an error, please post it and I'll propose a further solution.

chili555
  • 60,188
  • thanks a lot, So you think that it will be solved in 15.10??? Because I have no ethernet connection at my disposal... – opensas Jun 06 '15 at 15:42
  • Please see my edit above. – chili555 Jun 06 '15 at 21:51
  • It worked like a charm, I didn't even need the modprobe (even thought I tried it in ubuntu mate and it neede several other packages, but in ubuntu 15.04 unity edition it worked fine) Do you know where I should file this bug? – opensas Jun 17 '15 at 01:26
  • Here, probably: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl – chili555 Jun 17 '15 at 01:36
  • I filed the bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/+bug/1687255 I anybody else is experiencing it go and mark the "This bug affects you" check – opensas Apr 30 '17 at 05:23