wireless disabled after installing update and restarting (dual boot ubuntu/win7)
 

hi everyone,

i am new to linux but i love it !

the only issue that i have: the wireless is always disabled.

when i install new updates, the wireless comes back enabled and everything is fine but when i restart ubuntu its disabled again !!

i have a DELL studio 1537 laptop (broadcomm wifi card)with a win7 service pack 1/linux ubuntu 10.04 LTS dual boot.

please help me solve this issue cause i would like to eventually don't use win7 at all but i need wifi !!

thank you

Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but I have to ask anyway. Nearly all laptops, netbooks, and other mobile devices have a switch somewhere that enables or disables the internal wireless card. Did you try this switch? If that doesn't work, then make sure that the Broadcom STA driver is installed instead of b43. There should be a tool called "jockey" installed. Open up the Synaptic package manager and have a look. You can also check the System menu in the default Gnome desktop install, and look for something named "Additional Drivers". It looks kind of like a computer chip with a padlock on it.

The switch is good, i did install the broadcomm driver (forgot to mention sorry)
Could windows 7 disable my wireless card in linux ? Cause ubuntu is install on top of windows i think.

I know computers a little but i cant seem to make it work... Frustrating !
Anything else that you can see ?

Thanks a lot

Well, first off, Windows and Linux are both operating systems, and only one OS can run at a time (there are exceptions to this, but let's keep it simple). Therefore, when one OS is running, the other can't do anything.

Now for the drivers. When you boot into Ubuntu, open up a terminal (should be in the menu under "Accessories") and run the this command:

lsmod | grep wl

The | character is the pipe symbol. It should be on the same key as \. If you don't get anything, then the Broadcom STA driver is not loaded.

Ok thanks ill try it out and ill let you know

You need to figure out which Broadcom driver you are using. Take a look at this page:

http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt

If your card is not listed there you should use the b43 driver, and you can find if you have that one installed by:
The first line tells you what the name of the driver is, which you will use in the second line (most probably it is b43-fwcutter).

If your card is listed in the supported devices section, you should be using the Broadcom-STA driver, even if b43 worked for some time with your card. First purge the b43 driver, You can install it using the LiveCD itself, following the guide here ("No internet access" - I assume you have no internet access right now, if you do, just plug in an ethernet cable and follow the same guide):

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/bcm43xx

It is a little outdated - you do not need to install all of dkms, patch, fakeroot and bcmwl-kernel-source - I do not remember which ones but the ones you don't will be missing on the CD anyway, since they are automatically installed.

After that, make sure you also do:

since these two may not be disabled if you tried the b43 driver.

You should then have internet access upon reboot. I have a Broadcom card, and it has been one of the greatest hassles when installing a distro. It has also been one of the biggest sources of all my learning experience when I learned how to circumvent those hassles.

hi again !

nothing worked so far but i am learning a lot about how linux works !

i've checked and the STA broadcomm driver is installed and active.

i purged the b43 fw-cutter

when i try to do the commands: $ sudo echo b43 >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
$ sudo echo ssb >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

i get a "permission denied" message for both commands.

i tried something... i went in the synaptic package manager and i've checked for broadcomm related packages.

the "broadcomm-sta-common" and the "broadcomm-sta-source were'nt installed, i installed them and i rebooted... still does'nt work...

anything else you can help me with ?

thanks a lot guys !

thenamematters

If it's broadcom the wireless card is bcm5784m
It should be available in additional drivers through ubuntu

the card is the 4322

Try installing through "Additional Drivers" it should automatically install.

i've tried that already the driver is install and active but the wireless is still disabled

I don't know why the echo command dues not work for you, but in that case you should edit the file by hand:
And add the names b43 and ssb at the bottom, press Ctrl + O to save, and then reboot. The broadcom driver should work now since it is activated. Also note that 'broadcom' is spelt with a single m, so make sure that that does not give you trouble at any point.