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[Bug 1306928] Re: Broadcom STA driver gets autoinstalled on BCM4313, where it's no longer needed

 

** Changed in: jockey (Ubuntu)
       Status: Fix Committed => Invalid

** Changed in: jockey (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Medium => Undecided

** Changed in: jockey (Ubuntu)
     Assignee: Alberto Milone (albertomilone) => (unassigned)

** Changed in: jockey (Ubuntu Precise)
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Alberto Milone (albertomilone)

** No longer affects: jockey (Ubuntu)

** No longer affects: jockey (Ubuntu Trusty)

** No longer affects: ubuntu-drivers-common (Ubuntu Precise)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1306928

Title:
  Broadcom STA driver gets autoinstalled on BCM4313, where it's no
  longer needed

Status in ubuntu-drivers-common package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in jockey source package in Precise:
  Fix Committed
Status in ubuntu-drivers-common source package in Trusty:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  SRU request:

  == 14.04 ==

  [Impact]

  Ubuntu 14.04 ships with a good open replacement for the proprietary
  driver, which seems to work on many systems that were quietly dropped
  by the proprietary driver. We should default to the open driver. This
  will only affect 14.04.1.

  [Test Case]

  
  1) If the broadcom driver is already installed, make sure to remove it:

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

  Then reboot.

  
  2) Test the automatic installation using the following command:

  ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

  and make sure that ubuntu-drivers does not install the broadcom driver

  [Regression Potential]

  It should be minimal (and affect only 14.04.1). The open broadcom
  driver should already work out of the box.

  Furthermore the test suite now covers this test case.

  
  == 12.04 ==

  [Impact]

  Kernel versions higher than 3.11 ship with a good open replacement for
  the proprietary driver, which seems to work on many systems that were
  quietly dropped by the proprietary driver. We should default to the
  open driver when this is the case. This will only affect 12.04.5.

  [Test Case]

  1) If the broadcom driver is already installed, make sure to remove
  it:

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

  Then reboot.

  2) Make sure that "linux-generic-lts-trusty" is installed:

  sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-trusty

  And reboot.

  3) Test the automatic installation using the following command:

  jockey-text --auto-install

  and make sure that Jockey does not install the broadcom driver

  [Regression Potential]

  It should be minimal (and affect only 12.04.5). The open broadcom
  driver should already work out of the box.

  Furthermore the test suite now covers this test case.

  == Description ==

  The propreitory driver Broadcom STA (packaged as 'bcmwl-kernel-source', provides 'wl' kernel module) gets autoinstalled upon Ubuntu 12.04.4 installation on systems with Broadcom BCM4313 (14e4:4727) wireless cards. Upto Ubuntu 12.04.3 with 3.8 kernel, this was good behaviour. But, with 3.11 kernel used in Ubuntu 13.10 and Ubuntu 12.04.4, the official open source 'brcmsmac' driver had improved (with the newly implemented AdHoc and AP mode, and other improvements) over propreitory 'wl'. On newer kernel versions, 'brcmsmac' works better than 'wl'.
      Autoinstalling the 'wl' driver would actually be a "downgrade" of functionality. I understand that there are some cards work only with 'wl', but it's better not to do autoinstall of 'bcmwl-kernel-source' on the ones supported by 'brcmsmac'. It maybe offered on the jockey Additional Drivers list, though I don't see any reason why anyone would prefer 'wl' over 'brcmsmac' now. I don't know if this issue remains on Ubuntu 14.04LTS's jockey merged with 'ubuntu-drivers' package. But, if it does that has to be fixed too. I hope this issue is fixed soon, so that Ubuntu 12.04.5 is released with the fixed jockey.

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