Help getting broadcom wireless to work

[Mud Bungie]

I'm having issues installing the wl kernel module necessary for broadcom (BCM4352) wireless to work in my net vm (I shifted over to Debian instead of Fedora, because I'm more familiar, but this is a kernel issue, so solutions might end up being portable).

The debian wiki suggests this :

apt-get install linux-image-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms

which gives the following return:

E: Unable to locate package linux-image-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-image-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64'
E: Unable to locate package linux-headers-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-headers-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64'

The issue seems to center around that sed function evaluating to:

4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64

Which isn't something that shows up in the debian repos, for obvious reasons.

My immediate question is: how do I get wireless working?
More generally, does anyone know how to resolve uname-based installations such that they'll land on usable packages from inside VMs?

[Axon]

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Mud Bungie:

> I'm having issues installing the wl kernel module necessary for
> broadcom (BCM4352) wireless to work in my net vm (I shifted over to
> Debian instead of Fedora, because I'm more familiar, but this is a
> kernel issue, so solutions might end up being portable).
>
> The debian wiki suggests this : apt-get install linux-image-$(uname

> -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') linux-headers -$(uname -r|sed

> 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms
>
> which gives the following return: E: Unable to locate package
> linux-image-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64 E: Couldn't find any

> package by regex 'linux-image-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes. x86_64' E:

> Unable to locate package linux-headers-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64
> E: Couldn't find any package by regex
> 'linux-headers-4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64'
>
>
> The issue seems to center around that sed function evaluating to:
> 4.1.13-9.pvops.qubes.x86_64
>
> Which isn't something that shows up in the debian repos, for
> obvious reasons.
>
> My immediate question is: how do I get wireless working? More
> generally, does anyone know how to resolve uname-based
> installations such that they'll land on usable packages from inside
> VMs?
>

You might find this thread (somewhat) helpful:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/qubes-users/Wt9Nm7posho/discussion


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[Mud Bungie]

Yeah. I've been working with the information in that thread to no avail. They didn't succeed either.

[raah...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, April 10, 2016 at 11:25:17 PM UTC-4, Mud Bungie wrote:
> Yeah. I've been working with the information in that thread to no avail. They didn't succeed either.

there is alot of threads regarding that chip and fedora 23. here is one https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/78295/broadcom-wireless-bcm4352-and-fedora-23/

You can also try a debian netvm after installing firmware-b43-installer package in it.

[raah...@gmail.com]

maybe this guys method will work for you. http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=423654

[Mud Bungie]

Sorry for abandoning thread for a couple of days; other matters took precedence.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried the steps specified in linked threads, to no avail.

So, as proof of concept, I went ahead and booted a normal Debian installation, and got the wireless working pretty trivially using the instructions found here: https://wiki.debian.org/wl. This eliminates any questions of underlying hardware compatibility or functionality.

Naturally, I had tried this before in Qubes, but met with mixed success, because of kernel incompatibility. The Debian repos specify version 3.16.0, which is the same as the version that I confirmed sans virtualization. The Debian VM that ships with Qubes is 4.1.13, so I tried to downgrade the kernel. I followed the instructions here: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/managing-vm-kernel/.

Unfortunately, I've hit a wall; when I specify a pvgrub boot to kernel 3.16.0, the boot hangs, and I get an error stating that the VM "Cannot execute qrexec-daemon!". Logs seem to indicate that /boot isn't accessible to the booting VM. Interestingly, I get the same qrexec complaint while booting the template directly, but the template will boot.

As I see it, I have four paths to follow:

• Downgrade the dom0 kernel in order to avoid the pvgrub issue, and boot a supported kernel version. (This seems dumb for a lot of reasons)
• Play around in the grub rescue via xl console, to see if I can get it to boot
• Use a different guest distro, which has support for a working wl module on 4.1.13
• Try to port something from a more progressive distro. They're kernel modules after all, so they should be agnostic...
  

Anyhow, I'll keep working at it, and post results here. If anyone has had any success getting broadcom wifi working, please don't hesitate to suggest your process.