Getting the wireless to work on a Dell Latitude D600 under ubuntu or debian is a pain.
Problem:
The network manager under gnome says ‘firmware missing or not installed’.
and “sudo dmesg | grep ERROR” returns a message like
b43legacy-phy3 ERROR: Firmware file "b43legacy/ucode4.fw" not found or load failed.
b43legacy-phy3 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 3).
Solution:
Go here:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Ubuntu.2FDebian and download the ‘b43legacy’
sudo su
cd ~
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
Install the b43-fwcutter utility.
apt-get install b43-fwcutter
Use the utility to extract the firmware.
b43-fwcutter ./wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
This will create a directory in the current directory with the firmware files. It will be called “b43legacy”.
Move the folder into your /lib/firmware directory and reboot and you should find the firmware needed by your wireless card.
mv ./b43legacy /lib/firmware/
reboot
And enjoy wifi goodness on your linux powered laptop.
Dude you ROCK!!!! I’ve spent the past four hours reading every ‘how to…’ and ‘well what you need to do is…’ all of them beating around the bush, what I needed was exactly what you posted here, thanks, this was very much appreciated! I’m trying to get ZMLarch (Arch Linux) on a BCM4320 which is b43legacy… I think this did it, (just have to polish out all the scratches I made here in there in the system ;o) )
P.S… IT WORKS!