no wlan after install of 16.04 (dell xps15)

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 09 April 2016 03:15:53 robert rottermann wrote:

> Hi there,
> I installed ubuntu 16.04 on my dell xps 15.
> Unfortunately wlan does not work any more.
>
> no wlan is offered in the system settings, and
> and no wlan device is in the /etc/network/interfaces.
>
> root at lappi:/home/robert# cat /etc/network/interfaces
> # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback
>
> this is what lspci displays:
>
> root at lappi:/home/robert# lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
> 06:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4352
> 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43b1] (rev 03)
>      Subsystem: Dell BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
> [1028:0019] Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
>      Memory at f7a00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
>      Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
>      Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
>      Capabilities: [58] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
>      Capabilities: [68] Vendor Specific Information: Len=44 <?>
>      Capabilities: [ac] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
>      Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
>      Capabilities: [13c] Device Serial Number c4-8e-00-ff-ff-00-00-01
>      Capabilities: [150] Power Budgeting <?>
>      Capabilities: [160] Virtual Channel
>      Capabilities: [1b0] Latency Tolerance Reporting
>      Capabilities: [220] #15
>      Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
>      Kernel modules: bcma
>
> any ideas what I could do?
> thanks
> robert

I'm going to catch hell for this but I'm old school on this...

Nuke network-mangler and if you want dhcp to handle its addressing, try 
wicd, I've been a lot more successfull with it than N-M.

Then dmesg to see what udev called it _this_ time, and "man interfaces" 
to see how to add a stanza for it to the interfaces file. You WILL have 
to be root to edit it, and /etc/resolv.conf.

Oh, and welcome to the broadcom victims list with its cast of millions. I 
never did make the broadcom bcm-4318 radio in my now 15 year old HP 
lappy work for more than 2 or 3 minutes, even with the winders drivers 
running the installed xp when IP bought it.  But there, the xp only 
lasted a couple months, replaced with mandrake at the time.  xubuntu 
atm.

A netgear usb dongle plugged in and Just Worked(TM) once I had edited the 
interfaces file to add it, but I use host files so all of my machines 
have a fixed known address anyway.  On a home network its handy but 
hauling it to a motel and using their wifi will mean some editing.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>