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Linux gurus?       #: 487
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 02:22 pm
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john112deere
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 Hope I'm in the right forum...
I'm trying to revive an older iMac (2008) into a Linux-powered internet browser.
Hardware limitations restrict me to "lightweight" distros, and so I picked Lubuntu, somewhat arbitrarily.
Got it onto a bootable USB drive, fired the machine up, and it seems to be working OK except I can't manage to get my stupid Broadcom WiFi driver to work.
I do not have the option of hard-wiring it to a router, even on a temporary basis...so I'm stuck trying to download things to another USB stick from my laptop and moving them over that way.  Tried a couple that seemed like they should've worked, but no luck.

*Fair warning- I am a complete and total Linux noob.  As in, completely clueless.  So many of the Linux forum discussions I can find on the topic go right over my head.
Thanks!
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 02:47 pm
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JAMMAN

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 Define hardware limitations :)

Been using Ubuntu for about 8 years now and the server we are on I loaded CentOS. The other 8 servers also.

Is it a hard disk limitation or....

Any modern distro should have picked that wifi adapter right up, there were a few issues but nothing they have not overcome as far as I know.

even an 08 should be able to do 64 bit



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 02:54 pm
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john112deere
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 It's the 1 gig of RAM that (I think) is limiting me to the lightweight distros...I forget the specs off the top of my head, but when I was looking earlier, I'm pretty sure I had both disk space and processor capacity for most of the common ones. Yeah, it's 64-bit.
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 03:10 pm
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JAMMAN

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 Any chance to upgrade the ram? I have an old acer one older than that and was able to get a 2 gig stick for it.

I have a bunch of old laptop memory, let me know what it has and how many slots there are (my acer only had a single slot).

I would try just plain old ubuntu 64. Try the old 14.04.5 version first.

Then if it sees the wifi card try updating, if it doesn't take the update load 14 back on there and go with it.



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 03:31 pm
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john112deere
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 Yeah, I could probably update the RAM if it works...I was just messing around with what's become an iMac-shaped paperweight and didn't want to invest anything more than time into it until I had a sense if it was worth it.

I'll burn plain Ubuntu to a stick and see if that works...thanks!
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 04:43 pm
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john112deere
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 OK- running off Ubuntu 14.04 now...it lets me see a proprietary driver for the Broadcom, and even let me turn it on under Software & Updates/Additional Drivers.

But it still doesn't seem to work.

(Progress over Lubuntu, though- that showed me the proprietary driver but wouldn't even let me toggle it on.)


*I'd be inclined to reboot, except since I'm running off a USB for the moment, every reboot is a fresh start, right? Any way to 'trick' it into re-looking for the hardware?
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:12 pm
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JAMMAN

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 Well since you are handy at this evidently, if it seems to run the 14.04 OK level up and give it 16.04 LTS

I believe there is a way to save progress to the stick but I've never had to do it.

16.04 had a lot better array of wireless adapter drivers included.

Query the adapter and write the details down: sudo lshw -C network



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:14 pm
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JAMMAN

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 LOL just the broadcom details.



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:22 pm
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john112deere
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 Well, I dunno...it really didn't seem to like running it.

It booted, but froze or nearly froze a couple times just piddling around doing simple little things.

Although I am now running my MacBook Air on 14.04 off that USB drive. Worked fine over here- probably under 2 minutes from sticking the drive into the machine to posting on here.

I'm gonna boot the iMac back on the Lubuntu stick and see what it can pull for details on the Broadcom.

Thanks for your help- really appreciate it!
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:32 pm
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john112deere
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 OK- that command, now that I think about it, was actually one of the things I tried that locked it up. (I found it on some forum...)

Hand-typing these over, hope I get it all right:
description: Network controller
product: BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
version: 05
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge-latency=0
resources: irq:16 memrory:50200000-50203fff
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:34 pm
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 Try opening a terminal (alt +ctrl+t) and typing

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

then try turning on the wifi in settings




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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:53 pm
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john112deere
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 It says 'bcmwl-kernel-source' is nt installed so not removed.
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 05:57 pm
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chris

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 OK - try

sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:02 pm
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 As you are running off a usb then instead of rebooting run

sudo modprobe b43



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:06 pm
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 Failed...because, if I'm interpreting things properly, that goes out looking to download it off the internet, which I can't connect to.

*Side note- I'm still on Ubuntu 14 on my laptop here, and in the above paragraph it informs me that 'internet' is not a recognized word. Good grief...where do you even find a digital dictionary that out of date?
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:09 pm
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 No - apt install installs from the linux package already installed.

Apt-get install goes off to find it.



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:11 pm
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 If your distro doesn't have the files then download the following files on your other pc and transfer to the home folder

http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/b43-fwcutter_015-9_amd64.deb

http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:18 pm
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chris

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 then run

sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter_015-9_amd64.deb tar xfvj broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o


finally

sudo modprobe b43



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:32 pm
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john112deere
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 I think I tried that last night, but I'll give it a shot in a minute...got both machines tied up doing other stuff at the moment.

Really appreciate the help!
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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 06:35 pm
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chris

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 Your welcome - I am off to sleep now (it is  11.25 pm this side of the pond)



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 Posted: Sun Jan 14th, 2018 07:27 pm
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JAMMAN

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 LOL 2 linux people this must be your lucky day :)



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 Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2018 07:25 am
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john112deere
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 Lucky, indeed.

Still haven't gotten it working, unfortunately. I think Chris is on the right track- that's what makes sense to me, anyway (download the proper drivers from a working computer, and tell it to install them) but for whatever reason it didn't work. I'll try it again today; maybe I just botched it somehow.


And, thanks to your suggestion of trying full Ubuntu, I had it on a stick, and booted my laptop from it and played with the OS some that way. Would've done it for longer but it doesn't play real well with my trackpad and it was kind of a pain. I'm sure that's fixable with a better driver, but I'm not really interested in Linuxing this machine just yet.


One more day of 'home with no real plans' to muddle with it...
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 Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2018 05:59 pm
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john112deere
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 And I'm posting this from my iMac, running Lubuntu.

Many thanks to you both!

The more I chewed on it, it seemed to be coming around to being, in part, because it was on a USB stick...so I worked up the courage to install it for real on the machine. Then I was able to use Chris' links and commands to install the drivers, and after a reboot it's working.

Thank you!

(I'm not, actually, 100% sure I can boot this thing back into Mac OS anymore...I tried to set it up rEFInd, but instead of that I get a DOS-ey lookin' screen on bootup. Wouldn't boot into 64-bit Mac, but it did boot into 32-bit. At any rate, I've backed up everything I needed off this machine so I'm not inclined to mess with that piece any further, for now
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 Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2018 06:15 pm
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JAMMAN

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 WOOHOO! Glad this story has a happy ending :)

I thought it was a bare machine, I didn't know you were trying dual boot. Now I understand the reluctance for the full install and the full size distro.

Typing from a toshiba laptop running ubuntu :)



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 Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2018 06:31 pm
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john112deere
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 Happy-ish, anyway...I'm still struggling a bit with making it, you know, useful...not sure if it's settings, or hardware, or what, but it's a bit buggy/laggy in pretty normal uses.

But heck- I haven't actually used that machine for several years, other than for my Ranger gas mileage, oil-change and tire-swap spreadsheet (now moved over to the laptop)...last time it got any serious use was, uhh, spring of 2015 when this laptop drank a beer (Greedy pig! I wanted that beer!) and had to go off to the Dr. for a week or so...

Last edited on Mon Jan 15th, 2018 06:33 pm by john112deere
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