unable to access net using wireless adapter in Ubuntu 9.10

pr5439 · 02-11-2010, 07:33 AM

I had been using Ubuntu 8.04 distro earlier and it was working quite well for me.Initially i had a problem with wireless net connection,but after installing ndiswrapper it all went well and fine.
I just had a fresh install of 9.10 Karmic on my system,but it seems its not that easy going for me here as it was in 8.04.Initially after installing ndiswrapper i was online,and on instaling b43fwcutter,the necessary drivers were downloaded and installed automatically, but same is not the case now as even though in "restricted hardware drivers" my wireless adapter is recognized but it doesn't connect to the net and i dont have any other choice to access net.I dont know if i am missing something or did something wrong.I have a compaq 505tu laptop with Broadcom 802.11b/g wireless adapter.Any suggestions ???
Thanks in advance

fair_is_fair · 02-12-2010, 07:34 AM

A couple of things you can check.
Sometimes you need to blacklist the linux driver which can be done in /etc/modprobe.d.
Make sure "ndiswrapper" is added to /etc/modules.

reed9 · 02-12-2010, 08:14 AM

If you're using the b43 driver, which is the driver that uses the firmware installed via b43-fwcutter, then you do not want ndiswrapper loading as well. In almost all cases, two wireless modules trying to work with the same card results in neither working.

Please post the output of

Code:

lspci | grep -i net
lsmod
dmesg | grep firmware

pr5439 · 02-13-2010, 10:46 AM

thanks for the suggestions, here is what i see in /etc/modules:

Quote:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

lp

and it does not contain anything like ndiswrappper,morever i just cant understand what to blaklist and how but i do see a file named ndiswrapper in /etc/modprobe.d
and heres the output for
Code:

Quote:

lspci | grep -i net
lsmod
dmesg | grep firmware

it is

Quote:

priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$ lspci | grep -i net
06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
08:08.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
binfmt_misc 8356 1
ppdev 6688 0
snd_hda_codec_conexant 20060 1
snd_hda_intel 26920 2
snd_hda_codec 75708 2 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 7200 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss 37920 0
snd_mixer_oss 16028 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 75296 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 2656 0
snd_seq_oss 28576 0
arc4 1660 2
ecb 2524 2
joydev 10272 0
snd_seq_midi 6432 0
snd_rawmidi 22208 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 6940 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
psmouse 56180 0
b43 122136 0
snd_seq 50224 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
mac80211 181236 1 b43
lp 8964 0
cfg80211 93052 2 b43,mac80211
iptable_filter 3100 0
led_class 4096 1 b43
serio_raw 5280 0
snd_timer 22276 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 6920 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
ip_tables 11692 1 iptable_filter
parport 35340 2 ppdev,lp
snd 59204 16 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_s eq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 7264 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 9156 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
x_tables 16544 1 ip_tables
fbcon 36640 72
tileblit 2460 1 fbcon
font 8124 1 fbcon
bitblit 5372 1 fbcon
softcursor 1756 1 bitblit
i915 221064 3
drm 159584 3 i915
i2c_algo_bit 5760 1 i915
ssb 35300 1 b43
8139too 22620 0
8139cp 19260 0
mii 5212 2 8139too,8139cp
intel_agp 27484 2 i915
agpgart 34988 2 drm,intel_agp
video 19380 1 i915
output 2780 1 video
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$ dmesg | grep firmware
[ 15.428147] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[ 15.474163] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43-open/ucode5.fw
[ 15.478245] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
[ 15.996112] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[ 16.000217] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43-open/ucode5.fw
[ 16.004519] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$
priyaranjan@priyaranjan-laptop:~$

reed9 · 02-13-2010, 11:03 AM

Did you say you had installed the firmware? It isn't being found.

You did this?

Code:

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

pr5439 · 02-13-2010, 12:28 PM

thats what the problem actually is,to install the firmware it needs net,which was available to me in 8.04 just by installing ndiswrapper,but same is not the case now.On installing b43fwcutter by gdeb package installer the installation is interrupted in between where it tries to access net by some line like "http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o" .....

reed9 · 02-13-2010, 01:55 PM

Quote:

On installing b43fwcutter by gdeb package installer the installation is interrupted in between where it tries to access net by some line like "http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o" .....

So you have no wired access right now, and it's getting stuck trying to download the necessary file?

From a computer with net access download the tar ball.
http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources...8.10.4.tar.bz2

Transfer that file to your home directory on the Ubuntu box. Open a terminal and do

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4/linux
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o

reed9 · 02-13-2010, 02:01 PM

Wait, I think Ubuntu 9.10 isn't using as recent a kernel as I was thinking. I believe this is the file you need instead.

http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/b...0.10.5.tar.bz2

And then

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o