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I have an HP Mini 1035NR that I just installed Ubuntu 14.04.1 on from 11.04. My wifi would connect just fine before I did the upgrade, and now it won't let me connect using wifi or ethernet. I've tried adding the b43 and b43legacy files into /lib/firmware/ myself using Terminal. It says both folders are in there, but every time I boot my computer gives me an error saying the Firmware files b43/ucode15.fw and b43-open/ucode15.fw are not found. Now, I can't connect to the internet at all on it.

The WiFi hardware in my machine is Broadcom BCM 4321 (14e4:4239)

Anwar
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Brenden552
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  • Did you try to install the firmware with `b43-fwcutter` rather than manually putting files? – Andrea Lazzarotto Aug 30 '14 at 12:39
  • B43-fwcutter is in there, but it hasn't seemed to make any difference if that's what you're asking. – Brenden552 Aug 30 '14 at 12:40
  • Actually, it seems I wrote the **wrong** package name. Sorry about that! You should try installing `firmware-b43-installer`. – Andrea Lazzarotto Aug 30 '14 at 12:44
  • I will do that now. Do I need to go through and delete the b43 and b43legacy files in /lib/firmware before I run the application, or will it just write over it for me? – Brenden552 Aug 30 '14 at 12:46
  • P.S. How would I go about downloading firmware-b43-installer? I can not connect to wifi or ethernet, but I do have another computer running on Win7 and a flash drive to transfer files. I'm not finding anything useful on google. – Brenden552 Aug 30 '14 at 12:50
  • I just got it to work again. I downloaded and installed DKMS and then folled that with bcmwl-kernel-source. You can find both of those through Google. My wifi is back online – Brenden552 Aug 30 '14 at 13:28
  • Good job! You should write a self-answer and accept it, so other people will benefit from it. – Andrea Lazzarotto Aug 30 '14 at 14:18

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After hours upon hours of browsing to find an answer, I found something that ended up working for me. I couldn't connect to the internet at all, so I had to use a second computer and a thumb drive to accomplish this. The WiFi hardware in my machine is Broadcom BCM 4321 (14e4:4239) and the firmware disappeared when I did a clean install from 11.04 to 14.04. I was also missing the b43 and b43legacy files. It's a little bit of a work around (or so I felt) but I got it going.

For starters, you need to make sure that you have DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) so you can add to the kernel easily. You can install .deb packages using Terminal. Mateusz Stachowski on ubuntuforums.org/ pointed this out, so don't worry about that.

Inability to install external packages with Ubuntu Software Center is a bug.

You can install .deb packages from terminal with this command:

 sudo dpkg -i [insert file name here}

A user by the name of Anwar, who posted on code.google.com, explained how to install DKMS without having to go through Ubuntu Software Center.

Follow the link to download the dkms package.

http://linux.dell.com/dkms/permalink/dkms_2.2.0.3-0_all.deb

Save to a convenient location. 1. Installing this through Ubuntu Software Centre didn't work; the install button would >never become available. Instead,

1) open a Terminal window

2) switch to the root context by entering the following command:

sudo bash

provide the administrator password when prompted.

3) initiate installation by entering the following command:

 dpkg -i dkms_2.2.0.3-0_all.deb

Now is when I finished it up. On help.ubuntu.com, I found the article that helped me get the firmware installed.

Move The Wireless Folder To The Firmware Directory

sudo cp -r ~/wireless/* /lib/firmware/

Now let's double check to make sure the download made it to the firmware directory. To >do this type this into the terminal:

ls /lib/firmware

Ok so now that the download is in the firmware directory we need to go to that >directory. To go there open your terminal and type in: 

cd /lib/firmware

Now that you have changed directories let's double check to make sure you are in the >right directory, this next code tells us where we are in the computer file directory. This next code stands for "print working directory".

pwd

Are you at /lib/firmware if so good, if not go back one step.

Now that we are in the firmware directory. We have to extract the download, to do this >type in:

sudo -s

Then enter your password then:

tar xvf b43-all-fw.tar_.gz

Now is the firmware extracted properly? check by typing:

ls /lib/firmware/b43

or: 

ls /lib/firmware/b43legacy

Do you see the ucode files? if so then delete the gz file:

sudo rm *.gz

Then:

exit

Reboot.

sudo reboot now

Originally posted ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10796508&postcount=44 by >>>>josephmills, with chili555 consulted.

You can find the b43-all-fw.tar_.gz at http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

Brenden552
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