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What I have:

Lubuntu 16.10 running on HP 2133.

First, fixed wifi issue installing firmware-b43 as suggested here: No Wifi with Lubuntu 14.04 on HP Netbook

Next, tried to improve the screen resolution as it stuck on 640x480. Installed openchrome as suggested here How to set up VIA chrome9 screen driver?

So what i have is screen resolution improved (1024x768), but wifi disappeared. Interestingly, but wifi recovers once chrome9 is purged.

lspci says:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] (rev 01)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Limited BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

So, in the other words, I either have wifi or normal screen resolution.

Any suggestions?

user2703790
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  • It is absolutely unrelated. `firmware-b43-installer` only installs some files that are not related to video. What do you mean by "purging chrome9"? – Pilot6 May 17 '17 at 19:06
  • @Pilot6, `sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-openchrome`. Once its done, screen resolution drops back to 640x480 and wifi works again – user2703790 May 17 '17 at 19:14
  • This is a mystery. – Pilot6 May 17 '17 at 19:18

1 Answers1

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I am the developer of OpenChrome DDX graphics device driver. I am responsible for breaking the code of OpenChrome DDX Version 0.5 that inadvertently disabled HP 2133's WLAN. Someone else complained about the same issue back in December 2016, and the issue was resolved in Version 0.6 (March 2017). At the time of Version 0.5 release, I did not have HP 2133 for testing, so had no way to avoid breaking the code. VIA never made VN896 chipset graphics hardware programming guide public (they did it for the newer stuff like VX800 chipset). If you want a fix, you will likely have to compile the latest OpenChrome code from the code repository and install it.

https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/openchrome-users/2016-February/007237.html

Please note that Canonical rarely fixes serious bugs during the support period of the OS, and I think the bug is present even with Lubuntu 17.04. I will assume Lubuntu 16.04.3 HWE (Hardware Enablement) or Lubuntu 17.10 should resolve the issue.

Regards,

Kevin Brace

The OpenChrome Project maintainer / developer

Kevin Brace
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    I will also add that Debian repository has the latest OpenChrome DDX Version 0.6, but often Canonical is very, very slow in adopting newer code. They appear to have a policy of not really updating the device drivers after the OS release. They really should update Ubuntu 17.04's OpenChrome, but I doubt they ever will. – Kevin Brace May 19 '17 at 14:10