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I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 (minimal installation), but I have been having issues trying to configure a PCI Wlan card (US robotics with the BCM4318 chip).

I have come to the following resources and guides (although some of them are outdated for the 18.04):

I managed to modprobe the right driver but no wlan interface is showing up under ifconfig or iwconfig afterwards.

What I have done so far

As the guide stated I started with sudo lshw -C network. The device was found, but hadn't loaded any driver.

So I continued from the driver page. Which made made me naturally do sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer.

After apt-get completed I did a reboot (just to make sure). I continued doing what the driver page tells me to do, by unloading any previous drivers:

sudo modprobe -r b43 bcma
sudo modprobe -r brcmsmac bcma
sudo modprobe -r wl

And afterwards load the correct driver. sudo modprobe b43.

Now lshw -C network states that the driver has been loaded.

  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Broadcom Limited
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       version: 02
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=32
       resources: irq:21 memory:fe400000-fe401fff

And this is where I get stuck afterwards Troubleshooting driver step 3.1.

sudo iwconfig
eno1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

My lsmod is

Module                  Size  Used by
b43                   413696  0
bcma                   57344  1 b43
mac80211              778240  1 b43
cfg80211              622592  2 b43,mac80211
ssb                    57344  1 b43
gpio_ich               16384  0
snd_hda_codec_realtek   106496  1
snd_hda_codec_generic    73728  1 snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_intel          40960  3
snd_hda_codec         126976  3 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_core           81920  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hwdep              20480  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                98304  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core
snd_seq_midi           16384  0
snd_seq_midi_event     16384  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi            32768  1 snd_seq_midi
intel_powerclamp       16384  0
coretemp               16384  0
kvm_intel             212992  0
kvm                   598016  1 kvm_intel
snd_seq                65536  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
joydev                 24576  0
snd_seq_device         16384  3 snd_seq,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi
input_leds             16384  0
irqbypass              16384  1 kvm
snd_timer              32768  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
intel_cstate           20480  0
serio_raw              16384  0
lpc_ich                24576  0
snd                    81920  16 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi
mei_me                 40960  0
mei                    90112  1 mei_me
shpchp                 36864  0
soundcore              16384  1 snd
mac_hid                16384  0
sch_fq_codel           20480  2
parport_pc             36864  0
ppdev                  20480  0
lp                     20480  0
parport                49152  3 parport_pc,lp,ppdev
ip_tables              28672  0
x_tables               40960  1 ip_tables
autofs4                40960  2
i915                 1617920  8
hid_generic            16384  0
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 i915
drm_kms_helper        172032  1 i915
uas                    24576  0
syscopyarea            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
psmouse               147456  0
i2c_i801               28672  0
usb_storage            69632  1 uas
sysfillrect            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt              16384  1 drm_kms_helper
usbhid                 49152  0
fb_sys_fops            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
e1000e                249856  0
hid                   118784  2 usbhid,hid_generic
drm                   401408  5 drm_kms_helper,i915
ptp                    20480  1 e1000e
pata_acpi              16384  0
pps_core               20480  1 ptp
video                  45056  1 i915

Just to make some things clear, yes the card is still functional, the computer was running Windows 10 until yesterday, with the WLAN card as it's main network interface. I have disabled any power saving functions in the BIOS, just to rule it out. And I'm now posting from this machine over cable.

Byte Commander
  • 110,243

1 Answers1

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Found the culprit, my firmware was outdated (the drivers work fine), the apt-get install firmware-b43-installer failed to fetch a .tar.bz2 from the university apt cache server (reported it to them), changing my DNS, and actually pulling from archive.ubuntu.com worked.