Sunday, May 1, 2011

Ubuntu 11.04 and wireless connectivity problem

Wireless connection worked absolutely fine with the Broadcom STA driver on my lenovo machine - i386 until I upgraded to 11.04 when the natty narwhal's wireless connection became actually notorious! ;)
What finally worked for me to get the wireless connection working, Thanks to Eric Moon, is this. The last answer here did the trick.

I was getting the network UNCLAIMED status with

$sudo lshw -C network
PCI (sysfs) 
  *-network UNCLAIMED    
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:f0000000-f0003fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:1e:ec:96:04:3d
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.116 duplex=full firmware=sb v3.04 ip=192.168.1.8 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:44 memory:b8000000-b800ffff

and with

$ sudo iwconfig 
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

Thus I connected to a working wired connection and installed the missing piece of two softwares, namely, firmware-b43-installer and b43-fwcutter; after deactivating the current Broadcom STA driver under Shortcuts->Additional Drivers, section.

Then running the following command activates the newly installed driver:

$ sudo modprobe b43

Still I did not get the wireless lit up as indicated in the post there, and that was because the wireless was not active in my laptop. In my lenovo machine FN+F5 is the shortcut to turn on/off the wireless. So that combination got my wifi finally up!
Now on executing:

 $ sudo lshw -C network 

no UNCLAIMED network was reported...
Also,

$ sudo iwconfig

stated a wlan0 connection!!

23 comments:

  1. Muchas gracias!!! Hoy actualicé a Ubuntu 11.04 (totalmente recomendable) una portátil Lenovo 3000 C200 y perdí el WIFI con el consabido UNCLAIMED

    No me lo esperaba porque la HP530 se actualizó sin problemas, lo mismo que la Asus EEE PC1000 HA.

    Entonces, según las instruccines de aquí

    1) sudo apt-get update

    2) sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

    3) Desinstalé el Broadcom STA desde Drivers Adicionales

    4) sudo modprobe b43

    luego fui al iconito de redes Activar red inalámbrica y

    ¡encendió el led del Wi-Fi! Conectada!

    Thank you very much, Neha!!!

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  2. One thing I did not experience then was that sudo modprobe b43 would be required every time the machine boots up. Therefore I placed this at the end of .bashrc, now after booting up I have to start the terminal and enter the password to enable wireless connection!

    @gulincho: Happy to help! :)

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  3. Buena información a mi me paso lo mismo.... y con tu solución logre activar mi red inalambrica con mi hp530

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  4. Great fix dude. Thanks - spent about an hour looking and finally found your post. Awsome!

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  5. This worked beautifully. Thank you so much!

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  6. Thanks a lot, man!

    You saved my life!

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  7. I never leave comments. I am new to Linux and to Ubuntu. This post seems to be the end of a very frustrating experience, thank you so much for providing this easy to follow information which actually solved my problem as opposed to the other Ubuntu threads about wifi problems after upgrade which did not. Thank you thank you thank you.

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  8. Great fix thanks. the only problem I'm finding is that every time boot up I have to sudo modprobe b43. any fix?

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  9. Hey anonymous,

    The second comment here, states if you place this command in the .bashrc(or whichever shell you use), you need not enter it everytime you boot up, still you'd have to enter your password every time for their is a 'sudo' :P

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  10. This worked for my Gateway with a Broadcom 4311 card. Worked on it for 5 days.

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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  11. Thank you at all.
    I've fix my problem thanks to comments.
    The community grow up for people as you.
    Walter

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  12. I solved the STA driver problem by removing the latest driver of 11.04, download and install the older STA driver of 10.10.

    This link is http://packages.ubuntu.com/maverick/bcmwl-kernel-source

    The old driver version has to be locked in Synaptic so that Ubuntu does not upgrade it.

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  13. Wow this is terribly simple and logical!
    thanks satish..

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  14. Thanks, I too was rescued by your post. Keep up the good work. Peace and free code!

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  15. You're actually a genius, I removed the STA and typed that command, and it worked haha, feel so accomplished when you sort out a linux problem.

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  16. I have been using the solution in this post for a few months now and a friend greatly simplified the things for me:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Write "gksudo gedit" (Without the quotes)
    3. Open the file "/etc/modules"
    4. Add a new line at the bottem with "b43"
    5. Save, close, reboot.

    This way you do not have to type a password or anything.

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  17. Thanks! I've been trying to fix this for six months, and with your method it took less than 20 seconds!

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  18. THANK YOU! MODPROBE got hings working for me! At last!

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  19. How do i modify the .bashrc file so this will work on a reboot. I have dell latitude d630 running the ubermix ubuntu?

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  20. Hey, you just got to open the bashrc in your favorite editor and save it after making your changes.

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  21. Guys, you brought tears to a grow up men eyes. This worked neatly, thanks so much :-)

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  22. Wow! Thanks man! It really worked for my 12.04 installation! Couldn't find any solutions, and found yours. After activating the b43 drivers, pressed the wifi button, and the wifi light appeared! Thanks a million!

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