Upon turning on, ubuntu 14.10 refuses to boot and gives me ERROR @wl_inform_single_bss : cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error.

Why are you installing 14.10?

Vivid (15.04) is the latest stable version

Trusty (14.04) is the latest LTS

Utopic (14.10) is EOL in July this year

Umm... I'm not sure how to answer that. Could you tell me what EOL means? I am somewhat new to Linux altogether. Also, this doesn't really answer my question. I am thankful fo r your reply nonetheless.

Too hard
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Ubuntu+eol

??

whatever, man.

What?

You have a system connected to the largest information database known to man, yet you felt compelled to not use it and instead asked which would require me to tell you but you would also be sat waiting for someone to fill you in, when you could have EASILY have found it out for yourself in a few seconds... Why?

Hey, ease up. It's really not necessary to further reinforce your opinion. I have accepted it and politely ask you not to continue further discussion of such a trivial subject.

never expressed an opinion.

The question is, why are you trying to install a release of Ubuntu with so little support. 14.10 is nearly out of support. Installing Vivid will give the latest packages but only has 9 months support.Trusty is Long TermSupported (LTS) and is supported til April 2019.

Because due to my overall newb-ness in the Linux OS category, I thought that to update to 15.04 I have to update to 14.10 first, as I was running 14.04 previously. I just thought new version=> old is obsolete, as per most OS. I'm really thankful for the info you provided, but again, it doesn't really help get my computer out of catatonic state.

Also, adding info, the machine in question is a retina MacBook Pro 13'. (lame, i know, PC masterrace)

Reinstall using either Trusty or Vivid. Utopic is on the way out.

What version of bcmwl-kernel-source

dpkg -l | grep bcmwl

I'd love to tell, however I can not. You see, my computer doesn't go past boot, so I am unable to check. The boot sequence is also unusual, and I am unable to acess GRUB.

I think there must be different root causes for the effects that you are seeing.

The message "cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error" is related to a problem with the wifi driver. This can be shown only after you have booted into Ubuntu.

The grub menu should show before the Ubuntu OS is started. So if you see that "cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error" message, then grub has already handed over control to Ubuntu.
If you want to access the grub menu (e.g to try recovery boot options), you must press the shift key at another moment, either earlier or later in the boot process.

When the system has booted into Ubuntu and comes up with the "cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error" messages, can you switch to a virtual console with the Ctrl-Alt-F1 keys?
The system should show a "login:" prompt where you have to enter your username, press enter, and a "password:" prompt to enter the password.
Does that work?
You can reboot from that mode by entering the command
sudo reboot

Thank you for answering! I am currently somewhat unable to check, but I will be able to check in an hour or less. Again, thank you for the feedback!

Well, I am, luckily, able to acess the virtual console, but I attemped to log in and somehow failed. It tells me that the login is incorrect. What exactly is my login? My user name that I normally see when I turn it on doesn't work! I have checked caps/typos.

Yes, you should type in your username that you selected at installation of the system (case sensitive, usually all lowercase),
and on the next prompt you have to enter the password.

I have finally managed to remember my login. I have used the sudo reboot command, but i'm seeing the same message. Any way to fix it or do I have a reinstall?

Making sure that you are able to log in via the virtual console was just a prerequisite for the repair activities.

Please log in to the virtual console as before and issue the command

dpkg -l | grep bcmwl

Does that show "ii bcmwl-kernel-source ..."?

If yes, issue the command

sudo dpkg --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

if the output is something different, please tell us what it is.

Oh, ok. It showed "ii bcmwl-kernel-source ", I then "purged" it (huehuehue), what next?

If all my assumptions are correct, then you should no more see the @wl_inform_single_bss : cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error.

If you now try booting normally, what do you see?

Actually, I am seeing something different now. Its just a black terminal that first quickly types expected stuff, like starting daemons etc., but quickly become blank. The error message doesn't display though. I'm still having a problem though-my computer is unaccesible by normal means.

I would go to http://packages.ubuntu.com/utopic/bcmwl-kernel-source and then select either amd64 for a 64 bit install or i386 for a 32 bit install and select a mirror site to download from. It would not surprise me if you had an older version of bcmwl that wasn't compatible with your kernel. If you download Ubuntu 14.04.2 you get the 3.16 kernel with the incorrect version of bcmwl-kernel-source

@leo, @Jeremy
I assume we are seeing two different problems here:
1. Blank screen after booting
2. bcmwl error messages

My approach was to get rid of the bcmwl errors first (seemed easier to me), and to tackle the other problem afterwards.

@leo:
Next step: get the grub menu to show.

Boot into the virtual console as before and log in

issue the command
sudo nano /etc/default/grub

This should ask for your password as confirmation and then open an editor with the grub configuration file loaded.

change the lines (by changing the values and putting a '#' sign in front) that there are these lines in that file (don't change any other lines):

...
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
...

save the file (ctrl-o enter) and close the editor (ctrl-x).
Then issue the command

sudo update-grub

At the next boot you should see the grub menu where you can try to boot into an older kernel.

Hey. It's been a while, sorry, I was away. Anyway, the values of grub were exactly like those you provided, so there was really nothing to change. I tried to enter GRUB again by holding shift, but no use, it still does nothing. Does the fact that I own a Mac and that it has it's own simplified BIOS which is acessible by holding alt cgange much? Thank you.

If the values are as provided, then you definitely should see a grub menu when booting the system
You should see a countdown of ten seconds.

Is there a hash sign ('#') in front of GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT ?

Does the command
sudo update-grub
complain about 'hidden_timeout no more supported'?

Hmm... There wasn't a hash, actually. I wrote one in and then rebooted. I'm in GRUB right now. What next?

The idea was that you use the grub menu to boot into an older kernel (if you have still some installed) to check whether you have a display in screen with a different kernel.

Oh, ok. I booted into 3.something in recovery mode, display works, shows me some basic stuff like dpkg etc. in a square.

But what to do next?

Can you select advanced options, and then select 'Ubuntu with ... ' with an older kernel (_not_ recovery mode)?
What is the result?

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