Help setting up Broadcom WiFi on a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop
I've decided to ask for help, even though I haven't exhausted all the things I
might try on my own--I'm getting too old for this s%#@
This is, in addition to being a request for help, sort of a brain dump, which
might even help me realize where I am and find a way forward.
Overview: I got a Dell Inspiron 1501 at an estate sale for a very good price,
and would like give it to a friend, but would like to have Linux working on it
so she can at least consider using Linux. As far as her needs are concerned,
if it doesn't work on WiFi it is no good to her.
(Aside--Ignore this unless you're very bored: It came with Vista installed,
but no password or recovery disk. That was a whole other oddyssey, but I
finally managed to get the password by writing to the author of Ophcrack with
the NT hash of the password. I had downloaded several different Vista install
/ recovery ISOs and none of them would boot, the closest I got was a message
that said "Bootmgr is missing" even though I could plainly see a bootmgr on
the DVD. (I also learned (I think) that although a Linux install can boot
from a USB pendrive, apparently (iiuc), a Windows install / recovery disk
cannot (but I can't be entirely sure of that because I never got a Windows
recovery / install DVD to boot, either.))
Linuxes I have tried: I've tried to install Linuxmint 17.3 and 18.1, and
Debian Wheezy and Jessie--all seem to have about the same problem (discussed
further below). The laptop currently has only 1 GB of memory and a fairly
slow (1.7 or so GHz) dual core processor, so I'm not sure how well it will
work with anything newer. (The memory is expandable to either 2 or 4 GB
(forget which, atm), and I will probably upgrade it when I have a Linux
working with WiFi.)
Other "plans": I have ordered a USB WiFi dongle (from eBay / Taiwan, ordered
when I thought the WiFi "card" was not included with the laptop). When I get
it, I could consider disabling the internal Broadcom device (is it easily
physically removable?) and utilizing the dongle. Of course, the delivery of
that could be a month or more away.
What I think I've learned about the Inspiron, Broadcom, and Linux:
* Somebody on this list fairly recently mentioned the problems with
Broadcom WiFi devices and i inferred from what they said that LinuxMInt 17.3
might be the easiest Linux distro to get it working, which is why I tried it.
* All of the Linuxes somehow indicated that I had to load some other files
to get the Broadcom working. I eventually realized they were talking about
firmware that has to be installed on the card.
I think all of them (or at least Wheezy, iirc, identified those files as
b43/ucode5.fw and b43-open/ucode5.fw. (Are those two different files, and, do I
need both or either??). So far, I have not located those files anywhere,
either using google or searching the (Wheezy) packages (including contrib and
non-free).
I downloaded some packages from the Wheezy repository (after adding contrib
and non-free):
The downloaded packages:
firmware-b43-installer version 1:015-14.1
firmware-brcm80211 version 0.36+wheezy.1
There were other packages I could have downloaded and tried, but didn't, so
far.
Those packages provided me with (among other files):
/lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw
/lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw
b43-fwcutter
Using the -l option of b43-fwcutter, I see the following (exactly the same for
either of the 2 fw files):
<quoting from my terminal>
root@s19:~# b43-fwcutter -l /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw
b43-fwcutter version 015
Extracting firmware is possible from these binary driver files.
Please read http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware
<driver> <filename> <microcode> <MD5 checksum>
b43legacy wl_apsta.o 295.14
e08665c5c5b66beb9c3b2dd54aa80cb3
b43 wl_apsta.o 351.126
9207bc565c2fc9fa1591f6c7911d3fc0
b43 wl_apsta_mimo.o 351.126
722e2e0d8cc04b8f118bb5afe6829ff9
b43 wl_apsta_mimo.o 410.2160
cb8d70972b885b1f8883b943c0261a3c
b43 wl_apsta.o 478.104
bb8537e3204a1ea5903fe3e66b5e2763
b43 wl_prebuilt.o 508.1084
490d4e149ecc45eb1a91f06aa75be071
b43 wl_apsta.o 508.1107
f06c8aa30ea549ce21872d10ee9a7d48
b43 wl_apsta.o 508.10872
e413c0017b99195f3231201c53f314d1
b43 wl_apsta.o 508.154
023fafbe4918e384dd531a046dbc03e8
b43 wl_apsta.o 644.1001
68f38d139b1f69f3ea12393fb645c6f9
b43 wl_apsta.o 666.2
e1b05e268bcdbfef3560c28fc161f30e
</quoting from my terminal>
The main questions: So, where do I go from here? Is ucode5.fw an obsolete file
name? Or maybe that is the name for the Broadcom proprietary stuff but what
I've found are open source replacements? Is ucode5.fw in one of the other
Debian packages for Broadcom? Has anyone ever got WiFi working with Wheezy
and this Broadcom device?
Other information:
* WiFi works fine in Vista
Identification:
* Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1501
* The (Dell) service tag is 13142114389--maybe that's as close to a serial
number as exists (unless there is one in the BIOS or inside the case). The
Express service code is 61CH4D1
* The processor is an AMD Turion 64-bit , dual core, at n.n GHz.
* I found some clues that make me think the installed Vista is 32-bit
instead of 64-bit. Among them, you can buy a re-installl disk (from a 3rd
party) in either 32 or 64-bit Vista for this particular computer (i.e., the
Inspiron 1501--the other hints came as a I did things in or to Vista, but I
forget what they were). (Before I got the Vista user password I was giving
serious consideration to buying an install / recovery disk (for $26.95 + S&H)
to either reinstall Vista from scratch or reset the password on the current
installation of Vista, but then I became uncertain as to whether 64-bit Vista
would work or not.)
The Broadcom WiFi device is identified in different ways in different places:
* Somewhere I found a blurb that identified it as a "Broadcom Wireless 1390
WLAN Mini card"
* Using =lspci -vnn -d 14e4:=, I get the following information:
PCI-ID Supported? Chip ID Modes PHY version Alternative
14e4:4311 yes BCM4311 b/g G wl
IIUC, that means I can use the non-legacy driver (and Wheezy package)
* The tag on the bottom of the computer identifies the WiFi device as
BRCM94311MCG, FCC ID: QDS-BRCM1020
Thanks!
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