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I recently clean installed LXLE 16.04 at my MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2010

Going through the previously asked questions I followed this guide here till the end.

Disabled (purged) the bcmwl-kernel-source driver and installed the firmware-b43-installer as recommended.

Followed the:

sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo modprobe b43
sudo rfkill unblock all

commands.

I blacklisted everything that has to do with bcm43 in blacklist.conf

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ndiswrapper

And added rfkill unblock wifi in /etc/rc.local

Still my Macbook Pro wifi card is occasionally working...(1/3rd of the times)

...usually I see no wifi networks although the card appears active.

I'm using my smartphone USB tethering option to share internet to my laptop.

Output of lspci -knn | grep Net -A3

Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme [106b:008d]
        Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
        Kernel modules: ssb

Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1684] (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1684]
        Kernel driver in use: tg3
        Kernel modules: tg3

VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation MCP89 [GeForce 320M] [10de:08a0] (rev a2)

Any ideas for a linux beginner?

Thank you

UPDATE 1: I think it might have something to do with power management. Quite often when in plug my wifi card scan's and shows the available wifi networks. When on battery , the wifi card is active but not scanning , not showing any available network.

UPDATE 2: I removed LXLE and clean installed Xubuntu 16.04. Installed 'bcmwl-kernel-source' driver from the "Additional Drivers" section. Still the same problem...the wifi card is installed but it is not scanning for wifi networks.

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Vasilis Stergiou
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  • Please [edit] your question and add output of lspci -knn | grep Net -A3 terminal command. – Pilot6 Feb 06 '17 at 13:29
  • Done @Pilot6

    Thank you very much

     – Vasilis Stergiou Feb 08 '17 at 02:15
  • Welcome to AskUbuntu! bcmwl-kernel-source is supposedly the correct driver for this wireless chipset according to Louis' answer. Could you please run the network diagnostics when your wireless card fails and [edit] your question to include a link to the result? I know it may seem a bit overwhelming for a novice but your info so far is a bit vague and the diagnostics will likely cover all options that may cause your issue. Thanks. – David Foerster Mar 14 '17 at 17:10

1 Answers1

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The correct driver for this adapter is bcmwl-kernel-source. Run

sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

and reboot.

Pilot6
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  • Thank you @Pilot6

    So , I should go back and reverse everything done till now to work with 'bmwl-kernel-source' instead of 'firmware-b43-installer' ??

    Is it not related with power management at all?

    Thank you again , appreciate it.

     – Vasilis Stergiou Feb 09 '17 at 02:53
  • Ok followed your advice. Now the wifi card does not appear...Ideas? I only see the LAN card after doing 'lspci | grep Network' .... (and driver manager LXLE is not loading) – Vasilis Stergiou Feb 09 '17 at 03:21
  • Installing the drivers do not affect appearance in lspci. – Pilot6 Feb 09 '17 at 09:28
  • Again , couldn't it be a power management issue? As I mentioned earlier the wifi card usually worked when on AC power with the 'firmware-b43-installer' drive. Wifi didn't work 100% of times when on battery... With 'bcmwl-kernel-source' driver card disappeared from the system....not in networking , not appearing after doing 'lspci'... I will have to argue that this driver just don't work for my system. – Vasilis Stergiou Feb 09 '17 at 11:12
  • I just edited - updated my main question. Any new ideas? Thank you very much – Vasilis Stergiou Feb 11 '17 at 01:40