Need help enabling Wi-Fi with Zorin

Hello everyone,

I'm very new to Linux, and I've just successfully installed Zorin OS 9 Lite on a Dell Latitude D630 laptop. Upon completing installation, I've found that I can't get the wireless to work. I know how to "Add" a new connection and whatnot, and I've entered the SSID for said connection, but other than that I haven't tried anything else. I gain internet access when I plug an Ethernet cable in as I should, but I really need to Wi-Fi function to work. Like I said, I'm very new to Linux in general, so please bear with me on this, as I will likely get confused if an advanced set of steps is required to fix this. Thanks in advance!

Hi, I can't remember where Terminal is in Zorin Lite as not used it for some time. When you do find it and launch it, please enter:

Code:

lspci

then press the return key and post back the ensuing results.

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi, I can't remember where Terminal is in Zorin Lite as not used it for some time. When you do find it and launch it, please enter:

Code:

lspci

then press the return key and post back the ensuing results.

Hello and thank you for the reply! Below are the results from the command you aksed me to enter in the terminal:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (secondary) (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. Cardbus bridge (rev 21)
03:01.4 FireWire (IEEE 1394): O2 Micro, Inc. Firewire (IEEE 1394) (rev 02)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)

Hi, Zorin is based on Ubuntu so hopefully the advice given here should work - note there are two ways to do this - try each one in turn and keep us posted:

http://antojose.com/content/how-to-fix- ... 2-04-12-10

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi, Zorin is based on Ubuntu so hopefully the advice given here should work - note there are two ways to do this - try each one in turn and keep us posted:

http://antojose.com/content/how-to-fix- ... 2-04-12-10

Okay so the commands were definitely recognized in the terminal, however, each command that was entered was accompanied by an "E: Unable to locate package" error. So for instance, after entering this command: sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source, I would receive a message saying "E: Unable to locate package bcmwl-kernel-source"

And I did try both methods, by the way. Any other ideas?

Download from here the b43 firmware: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2tjz9jnj9xw5 ... ar.gz?dl=0
(I have uploaded it onto my dropbox account). (If you have ethernet connection do it on your own PC, otherwise you can download it from another PC that has internet connection, and then copy/paste it to your Zorin PC with the use of a USB stick).

As soon as it is downloaded, paste the b43.tar.gz firmware file you downloaded into your home folder (next to where your Downloads, Documents, Videos, Pictures etc. folders are).
Right click on it and select "extract here". A new file will be created named "b43".
Open terminal (ctrl+alt+T) and write the following commands, the one after the other, pressing <enter> after each one:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/b43
sudo cp b43/* /lib/firmware/b43
sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo modprobe b43

Thank you very much for the reply! I'll get on that as soon as I can and let you know of my results!

The laptop actually completely froze upon entering the final command. Been frozen for around 5 mins now, sooooo don't know if that's supposed to mean something xD And also, that first command resulted in the "unable to locate package" error.

Wait a second........upon hard resetting the laptop after 10 minutes of it being frozen, I restarted and suddenly the wifi connection in my house showed up! However, while the connections are showing up, I'm not able to actually connect after entering the password to the wifi, it tries to connect but after a minute it just stops trying and tells me I'm disconnected again, and the laptop actually freezes after it fails. Wow lol.

Please post the results of the following terminal commands:

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
sudo lshw -C network
lsmod

Results of first command: Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01f9]
Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1673] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01f9]
Kernel driver in use: tg3
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1490 Dual Band WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

Results for 2nd command: *-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4311 802.11a/b/g
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
resources: irq:17 memory:f6cfc000-f6cfffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:21:70:95:55:b9
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.134 duplex=full firmware=5755m-v3.29 ip=192.168.1.17 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:45 memory:f6bf0000-f6bfffff
*-network
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 2
logical name: wlan0
serial: 00:1f:e1:c6:d8:64
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=3.13.0-32-generic firmware=410.2160 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

Results for 3rd command: Module Size Used by
nls_iso8859_1 12617 1
zram 18032 2
bnep 18895 2
rfcomm 53664 0
bluetooth 342206 10 bnep,rfcomm
binfmt_misc 13140 1
arc4 12536 2
gpio_ich 13229 0
dell_wmi 12665 0
sparse_keymap 13708 1 dell_wmi
dell_laptop 17808 0
dcdbas 14448 1 dell_laptop
b43 356470 0
pcmcia 51828 0
coretemp 13195 0
bcma 42043 1 b43
snd_hda_codec_idt 48877 1
dm_multipath 22402 0
kvm 388083 0
mac80211 546051 1 b43
scsi_dh 14458 1 dm_multipath
snd_hda_intel 42730 1
cfg80211 409394 2 b43,mac80211
snd_hda_codec 164067 2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
yenta_socket 40201 0
joydev 17101 0
snd_hwdep 13272 1 snd_hda_codec
ssb_hcd 12749 0
serio_raw 13230 0
snd_pcm 85501 2 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_page_alloc 14230 2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_seq_midi 13132 0
snd_seq_midi_event 14475 1 snd_seq_midi
lpc_ich 16864 0
snd_rawmidi 25135 1 snd_seq_midi
pcmcia_rsrc 18319 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 22328 3 pcmcia,pcmcia_rsrc,yenta_socket
snd_seq 55383 2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device 14137 3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_timer 28584 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd 60871 12 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi
soundcore 12600 1 snd
mac_hid 13037 0
parport_pc 31981 0
ppdev 17391 0
lp 13299 0
parport 40836 3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
dm_mirror 21756 0
dm_region_hash 20121 1 dm_mirror
dm_log 18072 2 dm_region_hash,dm_mirror
psmouse 91329 0
firewire_ohci 35529 0
usb_storage 48417 1
tg3 152132 0
firewire_core 61867 1 firewire_ohci
ptp 18445 1 tg3
crc_itu_t 12627 1 firewire_core
i915 705659 2
ssb 51854 2 b43,ssb_hcd
pps_core 18799 1 ptp
wmi 18673 1 dell_wmi
i2c_algo_bit 13197 1 i915
drm_kms_helper 47182 1 i915
drm 244037 3 i915,drm_kms_helper
video 18903 1 i915

Wow, that is ALOT of text lol.

Ok, plug an ethernet cable to get internet and run the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo rm -R /lib/firmware/b43
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe -r wl
sudo modprobe wl

Your wireless should start working.

Also, run the following command for your wireless to be activated after the restart.

echo 'wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

madvinegar wrote:Ok, plug an ethernet cable to get internet and run the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo rm -R /lib/firmware/b43
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe -r wl
sudo modprobe wl

Your wireless should start working.

Also, run the following command for your wireless to be activated after the restart.

echo 'wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Sorry for the delayed reply, here are the results of the commands that you asked me to enter. Not sure why I'm receiving these errors: chipper@chipper-Latitude-D630:~$ sudo rm -R /lib/firmware/b43
chipper@chipper-Latitude-D630:~$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package bcmwl-kernel-source
chipper@chipper-Latitude-D630:~$ sudo modprobe -r wl
modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found.
chipper@chipper-Latitude-D630:~$ sudo modprobe wl
modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found.

On a side note, maybe I should mention that Computrace IS enabled on this laptop, it belonged to a now defunct environmental groundwater testing company known as Shaw. Not sure if Computrace would effect any of this, but the reason I'm using Zorin is beacuse it can't activate itself on a Linux based OS, or so I've read.

Have you plugged an ethernet cable to get internet connection temporarily?
If yes, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe -r wl
sudo modprobe wl

Your wireless should start working.

Also, run the following command for your wireless to be activated after the restart.

echo 'wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Thank you madvinegar for your assistance with my wifi. I have shut down and rebooted three times and it appears to have fixed my problem. I did receive an error when I attempted to run echo 'wl' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules.