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I've seen many issues with this posted before (usually on earlier versions of Ubuntu). I've followed the extensive guide posted on Broadcom drivers, and all the other "solutions" people have posted (reinstalling Ubuntu if I modified software) and absolutely nothing worked. This has included purging and reinstalling bcmwl-kernel-source.

This makes Ubuntu on my laptop (for me) essentially useless. I would greatly appreciate any help, and thanks in advance. I would be happy to provide any necessary details.

My laptop is an HP Envy.

bain
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user17902
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  • Please elaborate. By no Internet connection, do you mean not able to connect to a wireless network or not able to access Internet after connecting to the network? – adeen-s Nov 26 '15 at 03:09
  • I cannot connect to the network at all for 5 - 10 minutes. After multiple attempts, it sometimes says connected, but then I still cannot access the internet. – user17902 Nov 26 '15 at 12:40
  • If you've tried both the open source b43 and the closed source wl drivers and neither work then you can either try a newer kernel (e.g. 4.4) and hope that whatever problem you have is fixed, or give up on Broadcom and buy a more Linux friendly USB wifi adaptor. – bain Jan 22 '16 at 00:23

4 Answers4

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I had similar issue with this for BCM4352 and been compiling drivers for each new kernel. Until one day, I've found out that in "Software & Updates" you have magical tab "Additional drivers". Just select alternative, proprietary drivers and you should be fine.

In case above doesn't give anything to choose from, here's manual way to make it working. Drivers I used were downloaded from here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php - but it seems it's no longer there.

Most probably, you can use the newest one available here: https://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11 - then choose 64-bit version (https://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/hybrid-v35_64-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271.tar.gz) or 32-bit version (https://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271.tar.gz).

You can also go for drivers that I've used, thanks to Wayback Machine (Internet archive) - https://web.archive.org/web/20141213071440/http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php - links on this website point to the exact drivers (version) that I've used. Links for both: 64-bit and 32-bit are working.

Download, extract and follow the readme file precisely. In a nutshell, something like this should be enough:

start by opening terminal and get required packages for building drivers locally:

apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic
apt-get build-dep linux

Navigate to the directory with extracted content and execute:

make clean

If this is the first time you install this driver, please make sure to follow all 3 bullets in section "INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS - Fresh installation" that is:

1: Remove any other drivers for the Broadcom wireless device.
2: Insmod the driver.
3: Setup to always load at boot time.

remeber, this are only headings, well explained in readme file. I'm writing to follow this explicitly, as initially I just removed other BCM drivers and "insmod-ed" this one, but I had to insmod it after each reboot. This third section (3: Setup to always load at boot time) is easy to miss.

Hope this works for you as well!

Kacper Stawiński
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  • Under "Additional Drivers," I see "No proprietary drivers are in use," and there are none to select from. Am I doing something wrong? – user17902 Jan 22 '16 at 00:56
  • I'll edit my answer with my manual way of making BCM4352 to work - luckily, from readme file it looks like same drivers should be used for your BCM43142. – Kacper Stawiński Jan 22 '16 at 10:50
  • done! have a look at it :) – Kacper Stawiński Jan 22 '16 at 11:14
  • Thank you so much...I'll try it in a few hours and let you know how it goes. – user17902 Jan 22 '16 at 14:56
  • When I run sudo apt-get build-dep linux I get the error "You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list" From searching google it appears there is no way around this without an internet connection, which I do not have available when I am on Ubuntu. It also seems that this is an important step, because when I run make or make clean on the extracted directory, I get an error message. I did this all after reinstalling Ubuntu 15.10 from scratch. Any ideas? I am extremely appreciative of all the help so far. – user17902 Jan 23 '16 at 00:50
  • Not really able to help as I should right now. Sadly, all I can say is go for cable in order to build your wireless drivers. apt-get build-dep linux probably can be replaced with offline solution, I just don't know how out of my head. I'll try to bite it when I get back home tomorrow. – Kacper Stawiński Jan 24 '16 at 00:31
  • @user17902 You can't use an Ethernet connection temporarily, so you have an internet connection while trying to resolve this? – TheWanderer Jan 25 '16 at 01:57
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I have had issues with this driver in the past, the CM driver suggestion should have worked but if not, you could always try this 

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-dkms

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
Dominic Motuka
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A1 Computers
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Have you tried this answer which apparently works?

If that fails, I suggest you just try out another distro like Debian Testing or Fedora. Those two have the latest kernels and hence, a better chance that any fix provided by your manufacturer has gotten into them. Further, it will also rule out a possibility that there might be an issue with your specific device and not for all Broadcom BCM43142 models.

Community
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Prahlad Yeri
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First Install necessary packages. 

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

Download Driver from here.

sudo dpkg -i Download/wireless-bcm43142-dkms-6.20.55.19_amd64.deb

KK Patel
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