Broadcom Wireless

While newer Broadcom cards should work without issue, some laptops (particularly older HP/Compaq, Dell D-series, and the newest Apple hardware) include Broadcom wireless cards that don't work out of the box. If you have an Apple Mac, you have Broadcom hardware. To determine if you have one of these cards on any other brand of laptop, follow the instructions on the Network Card Determination page - if you see a Broadcom B43xx device, follow these steps to make it work:

Boot in "generic" mode

First, we need to boot in generic mode so that the new driver will work properly and survive a system reset. For further details on generic mode, see the Customization page on the ubermix site.

1. Plug in to a wired connection to the internet.
2. Reboot the device and press ESC immediately after your computer manufacturer's splash screen disappears (you should see a flashing cursor in the top left corner for a few seconds - press the escape key within 3 seconds to view the menu.)
3. Select "Normal Boot" from the menu (but don't press enter) and press the "e" key on your keyboard
4. Select the line in the box that begins with the word "initrd" and move the cursor to the end of the line.
5. Backspace over the four letters "aufs" and replace them with "generic". Do not add any spaces. Then press "ctrl+x" on your keyboard to boot

First, try the b43 firmware

If you are using something other than Apple hardware, try the following first:

1. Go to System and select Synaptic Package Manager. If you don't see Synaptic Package Manager, then open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and type "sudo synaptic" followed by the enter key.
2. Click in the Quick filter box at the top, and type b43
3. Select the box next to firmware-b43-installer and choose Mark for installation
4. Select the box next to firmware-b43legacy-installer and choose Mark for installation
5. Click on Apply

When the install completes, reboot your machine and see if the adapter works. If so, and you aren't experiencing any problems, you're done. If it doesn't work or you experience poor performance, try installing the proprietary driver

If that doesn't work, try the Broadcom driver

Use the following if you are installing on Apple hardware, or if the above doesn't work:

1. First, boot in "generic" mode, as described above, then...

If you are using ubermix 2.02 or greater:

1. Open a terminal by pressing ctrl-alt-t
2. Type /usr/local/lib/broadcom/setup.sh
3. Reboot

If you are using an older version:

1. Go to System and select Synaptic Package Manager. If you don't see Synaptic Package Manager, then open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and type "sudo synaptic" followed by the enter key.
2. Click the Reload button at the top to refresh the package list.
3. Click in the Quick filter box at the top, and type bcmwl
4. Select the box next to bcmwl-kernel-source and choose Mark for installation. Synaptic will notify you that it is also installing "linux-firmware-nonfree" - this is OK.
5. Click on Apply

When the install completes, reboot your machine and the adapter should work. and your wireless adapter should work.