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I have come to the following resources and guides (although some of them are outdated for the 18.04):
- Correct driver for my card
- Wireless Troubleshooting guide
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.
Found the culprit, my firmware was outdated (the drivers work fine), the
apt-get install firmware-b43-installerfailed 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.