Many years later, I can confirm the same problem still exists! Fresh install of Kubuntu 23.04 with the 14e4:4311 wireless chip, the KDE driver manager suggests installing bcmwl-kernel-source which does not work. Proper suggestion should be as above, firmware-b43-installer, which works perfectly.
Installing bcmwl-kernel-source does blacklist the b43 module which requires a little work to undo, so in my opinion having bcmwl suggested by the driver manager is worse than having no driver suggested at all. In my case, running: cd /etc/modprobe.d/ sudo rm broadcom-sta-dkms.conf was necessary to allow the b43 module to work, even after purging the bcmwl-kernel-source package. This solution of installing firmware-b43-installer is known and broadly suggested across many forums, and seems to always work for this chip while bcmwl-kernel-source never works, so I would second the suggestion of the driver manager explicitly recommending firmware-b43-installer when it detects this wireless hardware. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to bcmwl in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1407522 Title: 14e4:4311 [HP Compaq nx7400 Notebook PC] bcmwl package was suggested by KDE driver manager but broke the system Status in Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver: New Status in bcmwl package in Ubuntu: Triaged Bug description: On fresh 14.10 install on the first GUI run in KDE the KDE Driver Manager suggested installation of bcmwl-kernel-source (see attached screenshot)for my Broadcom Corporation BCM4311. After successful installation of the package and restart, my system got Jan 4 23:32:13 Beatles kernel: [ 19.485177] wl driver 6.30.223.248 (r487574) failed with code 21 Jan 4 23:32:13 Beatles kernel: [ 19.485208] ------------[ cut here ]------------ Jan 4 23:32:13 Beatles kernel: [ 19.485242] kernel BUG at include/net/cfg80211.h:3343! full description of the message in attached file (syslog_extracted.log). For some reason this also affects the driver for my NIC and my laptop got out of any possible network connection. So instead of configuring the wireless card it left me with only "lo" interface :(. I would expect properly configured modules for WAN and LAN.... Luckily apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source restores the previous state so I can submit this bug via LAN. Now I'm running Ubuntu 14.10 but the same happened half an year ago when I tried to install 14.04 on this laptop. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10 Package: bcmwl-kernel-source (not installed) ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-28.38-generic 3.16.7-ckt1 Uname: Linux 3.16.0-28-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: KDE Date: Mon Jan 5 01:00:26 2015 SourcePackage: bcmwl UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/broadcom-sta/+bug/1407522/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
