No wireless on Dell 1501 with Broadcom BCM4311 card

can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a; dmesg | grep -i firm

Thanks

neil@neil-Inspiron-1501:~$ sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a; dmesg| grep -i firm
[sudo] password for neil:
  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:c0200000-c0203fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 02
       serial: 00:19:b9:58:69:44
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=full ip=192.168.1.10 latency=64 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:21 memory:c0300000-c0301fff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
Linux neil-Inspiron-1501 3.0.0-12-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:50:42 UTC 2011 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
[ 0.173347] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored
[ 0.198354] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: No _BQC method, cannot determine initial brightness
[ 5.836931] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: No _BQC method, cannot determine initial brightness
neil@neil-Inspiron-1501:~$ ^C
neil@neil-Inspiron-1501:~$

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx

Will help

Hi, I tried this and my Additional Drivers section says my Broadcom STA proprietary wireless driver is activated and currently in use but I don't seem to be able to connect wirelessly. Should it connect automatically like in Windows or do I need to do something else. (sorry be appear useless!)

You might want to check out bug 732677, which indicates there are problems in Oneiric with the Broadcom STA wireless driver. The b43 driver will work fine with the addition of the firmware, which will be installed when package b43-fwcutter is installed (and the download offer accepted). Of course, the Broadcom STA drivers will have to be deactivated and a check made to ensure all the "blacklist b43" lines have been removed from all files in /etc/modprobe.d (because they suppress the working b43 driver).
See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx
which indicates that the maverick version of the bcmwl... package may work.

Thanks for the message. I have deactivated STA drivers. I used the terminal :sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer but says latest versions are installed. These do not show up in Additional Drivers (just shows STA deactivated).
I have removed the B43 reference in blacklist.conf (the only file in etc/modprobe.d that I can see b43 mentioned).

What can I do? DO I need to uninstall andreinstall (and if so how)?

THanks

There are two sets of firmware, the Proprietary Broadcom firmware, which gets downloaded on the first install of package b43-fwcutter (or after a sudo apt-get purge b43-fwcutter, to force the download offer on the install). and 2) the open source firmware, which is installed from firmware-b43-installer (for your chip). Since you say you got the firmware-b43-installer installed, you should have several files in directory /lib/firmware/b43-open, and if you got all the blacklists for b43, wireless should work. I used the open source firmware for years, but a recent shutdown bug causes an extra minute waiting for the missing b43 firmware, so I recently started using it again. Did you reboot after deactivating the STA driver and installing the firmware-b43-installer? the lsmod command should list modules b43 and NOT wl for drivers.

Hi Ubfan,
Thanks - not sure if i did things right but I used the purge command which appeared to remove the b43 firmware, then I used sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer which appears to have done a 'clean' install and it all suddenly works :)
Thanks very much for your help.