Broadcom Wifi Adapter connection solution for Linux !!! SOLVED -

[Skyh3ck]

Hi Everyone

I am having a Lenovo B490 laptop which has a Broadcom Corporations : BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller

I was not able to surf net with wifi, eventhough the wifi was connected and it always showed that the connection is made with the router, but i never got internet connection, so i did searched on intenet and found that Broadcom is one of the rare wifi adapter which has some poblem with linux.

So any one plannig to use linux make sure you avoid this chip, or you may have to suffer like me.

But there is a solution for that, I almost gave up using ubuntu and just made a last try and followed the steps give in this page

software installation - Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers - Ask Ubuntu

here is the steps:

1) first you need to connect the laptop with wired internet connection just for some time

2) open software center and search for B43, it will give you a software "Utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware" install it

3) now open the terminal and follow this steps

• Uninstall the bcmwl-kernel-source package by issuing the following command on a terminal:
  
  sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source
  
• make sure that the firmware-b43-installer and the b43-fwcutter packages are installed (of course you will need internet by others means): as shown in Step 2
  
  sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter
  
• type into terminal:
  cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep 'bcm'
  (you may want to copy this) and see if the term 'blacklist bcm43xx' is there
• if it is, type cd /etc/modprobe.d/ and then sudo gedit blacklist.conf
  
  
  a text file will open and then you have to search for "blacklist bcm43xx"
  
  put a # in front of the line: blacklist bcm43xx
  
  
  
  then save the file (I was getting error messages in the terminal about not being able to save, but it actually did save properly).
  
  
  
• reboot
  

Now you dont need to connect throught wired connection, wifi should work now without any problem,.

One more thing, many times the wifi works without the proprietory driver, so try that first and if it works do not mess with setting. In the softare and updtes in ubuntu, if you go to Additional drivers, it will be set to " Do not use the device" let it be like this only.

I have tried on my laptop Lenovo B490 initially it did not worked but with the method above it worked ok, I am posting this from Ubuntu with my wifi connection.


This guide is to keep it here for future reference and help others.

Also if anyone has any other method or issue, please post here we can discuss it here and help others

 

[Skyh3ck]

hey mod can you make it sticky, its most widely faced problem for linux user, i had to spend a lot of time make it working and found this method perfectly working, please make it sticky in this section.

 

[skeletor]

okay, I'll make a sticky thread with links to all these posts related to common hardware problems with more information regarding what all hardware to buy and what to avoid.

 

[Skyh3ck]

Thakns [MENTION=26711]ico[/MENTION]

A common thread with most faced problem with linux, hardware issue and its solution will be great, there are many online article, but its too much work to look for a simple solution, i have put one solution of most common issue of Broadcom,

almost all Linux distros works out of the box with almost all computer even the old P4 system.

the best advantage of linux is that it runs on Live mode, one of my friends hard disk was crashed and he was using an old P4, he could not install the XP as the crashed hard disk problem, but i gave him an old Ubuntu 9.10 cd i had prepared for my self, to use on live mode, after couple of days he came happily as he installed the ubuntu on the his crashed hdd and everything worked out of the box, Display, sound, ethernet, office, browser, everything was there

even my laptop hdd is also crashed and windows 7 is giving problem everytime i use it, but on ubuntu or mint, it is working all fine