how to find where did the downloaded driver go

[Alan Pope]

On 17 October 2011 08:39, Abhishek Dixit <abhidixit87 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am in a stage where I am frequently formatting my computer.My laptop
> needs some kind of properietary wifi driver.
> After installation of Ubuntu I go to control panel and enable the
> available drivers for this machine.
> Where it downloads or enables STA Broadcomm driver.I want to know how
> do find out what changes does it do or where does it keeps the
> downloaded  file since I have to format my laptop
>  many many times so I want to copy it in a USB.That will save some
> time at my end.
>

What I would do is use nm-tool to see what driver the wifi is using,
then lsmod to look for the module then modinfo to find it on disk, and
dpkg -S to see which package brought it in:-

alan at mbp:~$ nm-tool | grep Driver
  Driver:            wl
  Driver:            tg3

alan at mbp:~$ lsmod | grep wl
wl                   2568210  0
lib80211               14991  2 lib80211_crypt_tkip,wl

alan at mbp:~$ modinfo wl
filename:       /lib/modules/3.0.0-12-generic/updates/dkms/wl.ko
license:        MIXED/Proprietary


alan at mbp:~$ dpkg -S /lib/modules/3.0.0-12-generic/updates/dkms/wl.ko
dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern
/lib/modules/3.0.0-12-generic/updates/dkms/wl.ko.

This says to me that a script generated it (dkms gives this away).

Look for packages with "wl" in the name:-


alan at mbp:~$ dpkg -l "*wl*" | grep ^ii
ii  bcmwl-kernel-source                    5.100.82.38+bdcom-0ubuntu4
            Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source

So list what's in that package:-

alan at mbp:~$ dpkg -L bcmwl-kernel-source
/.
/usr
/usr/src
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/lib
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/lib/wlc_hybrid.o_shipped_x86_64
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/lib/LICENSE.txt
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/wpa.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/ethernet.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/bcmevent.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/bcmeth.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/802.1d.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/proto/802.11.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/linuxver.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/bcmwifi.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/pcicfg.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/bcmendian.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/bcmcdc.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/bcmutils.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/bcmdefs.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/epivers.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/packed_section_end.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/typedefs.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/osl.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/wlioctl.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/linux_osl.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/include/packed_section_start.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/shared
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/shared/linux_osl.c
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wlc_key.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wlc_types.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wlc_pub.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_iw.c
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_export.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/src/wl/sys/wl_dbg.h
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/Makefile
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/dkms.conf
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/patches
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/patches/0001-MODULE_LICENSE.patch
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/patches/0002-Makefile.patch
/usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/patches/0003-Make-up-for-missing-init_MUTEX.patch
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/bcmwl-kernel-source
/usr/share/doc/bcmwl-kernel-source/copyright
/usr/share/doc/bcmwl-kernel-source/changelog.Debian.gz

So it looks like it's all in /usr/srv/bcmwl*


alan at mbp:~$ ls -l /usr/src/bcmwl-5.100.82.38+bdcom/
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  364 2011-06-01 19:35 dkms.conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-09-27 20:20 lib
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1134 2010-12-15 02:01 Makefile
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-09-27 20:20 patches
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2011-09-27 20:20 src

Looks good.

Al.