wlan0 - b43 - not being recognized (model - BCM4311)

Question

wlan0 - b43 - not being recognized (model - Broadcom BCM4311)

Here's the output after running wifi-menu:

n180211: Could not set interface'wlan0' UP
Could not set interface wlan0 flags (UP): No such device
WEXT: Could not set interface'wlan0' UP
wlan0: Failed to initialize driver interface

Here's me trying to run ip link set wlan0 UP:

Error: either "dev" is duplicate, or "UP is a garbage"

ip link show output for wlan0:

wlan0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000

Measures taken:

1. Reloading the modules with rmmod b43 then modprobe b43.
2. Deleting /lib/firmware/b43 re-downloading broadcom-wl and reinstalling b43 from scratch with b43-fwcutter -w inside the /usr/lib/firmware/ folder.

Here's the dmesg output:

[    8.338235] systemd-journald[142]: File /var/log/journal/a03a9102551b4394ab4bd1a237770fa5/system.journal corrupted or uncleanly shut down, renaming and replacing.
[   20.724653] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4311 WLAN found (core revision 10)
[   20.760062] b43-phy0: Found PHY: Analog 4, Type 2 (G), Revision 8
[   20.760087] b43-phy0: Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, ID 0x2050, Revision 2, Version 0
[   20.760090] b43-phy0 warning: 5 GHz band is unsupported on this PHY
[   20.834639] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
[   20.834686] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
[   20.834735] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
[   20.834769] b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
[   20.834776] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode5.fw" not found
[   20.834931] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode5.fw" not found
[   20.835076] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
[   85.300501] systemd-journald[142]: File /var/log/journal/a03a9102551b4394ab4bd1a237770fa5/user-1005.journal corrupted or uncleanly shut down, renaming and replacing.

Update:

I managed to get it working, but only temporarily. The drivers were installed inside of /lib/firmware/b43/b43instead of /lib/firmware/b43/.

The device is indeed recognized by iw and ip link 9. So there must be a problem with how it is interfacing with these other linux services that handle network devices. I am not an expert in Linux so I don't know where to go to correct the problem.

Now, upon using wifi-menu, I am returned with the following error output:

b43-phy2 ERROR: Microcode not responding.
Could not set interface wlan0 flags (UP) : No such device
nl80211: could not set interface wlan0 UP
 WEXT: Could not set interface wlan0 UP
wlan0: failed to initialize driver interface
failed 

ip link shows the device is there (and is indeed DOWN), and systemctl shows the bcm4311 modules are loaded and running. I tried ip link wlan0 up and got an identical message. I tried deleting and reinstalling the b43 folder with b43-fwcutter broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o and running modprobe b43 then ip link set wlan0 up. Same result.

Answer 1

From the Arch Wiki: BCM4306 rev.3, BCM4311, BCM4312 noticed to have problems with b43-firmware. Use b43-firmware-classic for these cards instead.

Use b43 together with b43-firmware-classic. Also, b43 and wl are different drivers - you can use only one or the other.

If you delete broadcom-wl or broadcom-wl-dkms and b43-firmware from your computer and reinstall b43 after purging stale configs, WLAN should work.