[Kalifornia]

After successfully installing LL last night, I installed updates. Upon wakening and booting up, I lost my Wi-Fi, of course. It's a Linux thing. I knew I shouldn't have updated because that usually causes something to break. :)

My question is this, after reinstalling LL because I couldn't get the Wi-Fi to work after trying many things I found online, what updates should I do to keep from breaking this Broadcom Wi-Fi? Should I even update LL at all? I can't connect this laptop to Ethernet, so a wired connection is out of the question.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it... is that the best thing to do here, or is there a way to update only the necessary things without killing my Wi-Fi? I appreciate any feedback you guys have here.

Thanks!

[shaggytwodope]

Before any directions can be given (it may be a simple fix) can you type in a terminal:

Code:

lshw -c network

and post the entire output here.

[Kalifornia]

Sure thing.

Copied ouput:

*-network:0           
      description: Network controller
      product: BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller
      vendor: Broadcom Corporation
      physical id: 3
      bus info: pci@0000:02:03.0
      version: 02
      width: 32 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: bus_master
      configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=64
      resources: irq:19 memory:dfdfe000-dfdfffff
  *-network:1
      description: Ethernet interface
      product: 82562ET/EZ/GT/GZ - PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller Mobile
      vendor: Intel Corporation
      physical id: 8
      bus info: pci@0000:02:08.0
      logical name: eth0
      version: 03
      serial: 00:12:3f:f7:43:ed
      size: 10Mbit/s
      capacity: 100Mbit/s
      width: 32 bits
      clock: 33MHz
      capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
      configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e100 driverversion=3.5.24-k2-NAPI duplex=half latency=64 link=no maxlatency=56 mingnt=8 multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
      resources: irq:20 memory:dfdfd000-dfdfdfff ioport:df40(size=64)
  *-network
      description: Wireless interface
      physical id: 2
      logical name: wlan0
      serial: 00:14:a4:33:95:a1
      capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
      configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=3.13.0-24-generic firmware=666.2 ip=192.168.1.6 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

[shaggytwodope]

You will need to be connected online to do this.
Run these commands (one at a time, and wait until they complete it may take a considerable amount of time each time)
Last command being rebooting... which will hopefully have your wireless working nicely. You should be able to run updates from that point without issue.

Code:

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

sudo reboot

[Kalifornia]

Well, my wireless is working at the moment. In the first post, I was saying I had to reinstall LL to get it to work again. If I run those commands now, what good will it do? I sure don't want to update or do anything to LL if it's working :D Should I install updates then do those commands or what do you think?

[shaggytwodope]

Might take a little debugging of sorts sadly, when you run and update we need the output of the command

Code:

lshw -c network

You have to understand i do not own all the hardware on earth to test this myself... you can also read over this page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDo...t%20access

notably the section with

Code:

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb
sudo modprobe b43

Basicly... looks like you DO have the drivers, but they may be somehow disabled.

How comfortable are you with kernel modules?

[Kalifornia]

How comfortable are you with kernel modules?

About as uncomfortable as peeing next to someone who keeps looking at me.

[shaggytwodope]

Read the previous link in my last post, as well as the directions posted.

Now with that said, lets go a little deeper.. There is a section on this site called "Switching between drivers"

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

Read as much of it as you can, but basicly... after an update you need to run :

Code:

lshw -c network

and look for the section that looks like this:

Code:

configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=3.13.0-24-generic firmware=666.2 ip=192.168.1.6 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

if you dont see driver=b43 try running

Code:

sudo modprobe b43

And waiting for the wireless to kick in, if this doesnt work try to post the entire contents of the lshw command here. (I'm sorry this is so hard with no networking when it goes wrong)

[Kalifornia]

No problem at all; I appreciate the help. Before I do any of this, can you tell me the harm in not installing updates? I know the harm in doing so on Windows but not Linux. I'm fairly new to it all really, as I only dabbled in Ubuntu 8.04 years back and recently Elementary Luna. I guess if the wireless fails to load, I can still access the LL Forum on my phone.

[shaggytwodope]

The same logic applies to linux as with windows, security fixes and features are introduced in nearly all types of updates. It's by far ideal to always update. And as with windows, time to time with some hardware issues can arise. With any type of machine connected online.. I'd strongly suggest always updating.