Hello, everyone. Please bear with me, as this is my first forum post asking for help. Until now, I've never had a problem finding solutions with a little time and patience. This, however, has been a major problem. Any assistance would be most appreciated, as I'm at the end of my rope here...
Here's a quick run down of the system... (Note: There is no hardware wireless switch on this system. Wireless is enabled via Fn shortcut, which has yet to work with BackBox.)
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 0a)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05)
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
Here's my problem...
justin@BackBox-1:~$ lspci -nn | grep 0280
0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
Before we get started here, let me give you a heads up on some of what's been attempted already...
1) "Additional Drivers"... Fail.
Initial attempts returned errors and "did not install". Eventually I managed to get this to run and install correctly (according to feedback), but still no wireless. I had the ol' "installed but not active" notice... This is about as good as this got...
2) bc-fwcutter and (all at some point or another) bc firmwares... Install goes according to plan. Reboot yields no results...
I've installed several distros on this machine, and several load the wireless right off the bat. Some are as simple as enabling "Additional Drivers". The rest have been easily dealt with via bc-fwcutter and proper firmware packages... Not for BackBox. Still no wireless... This is the first distro I've not been able to activate my wireless on, and I don't understand why...
3) Attempting to work with "bcmwl-kernel-source" package not only errors out at the end of the installation (/lib/modules/3.2.0-45-generic/build *folder does not exist, yada yada), but attempting to add this breaks my ethernet connection as well. Removing the package restores my ethernet connection, at least...
4) There are no hard or soft blocks showing against it, either...
These are just a few of the countless routes I have attempted to gain functionality of my wireless connection.
(Wireless works fine when I boot XP, so I know it's not a hardware problem... Well, "broken" hardware problem.)
I'm at a complete loss here. I've tried all the solutions to problems here on the BackBox forums regarding BCM4311 issues and despite success for those individuals, I have not been so lucky, I've also hit every single Ubuntu forum regarding the same situation, with no luck...
I did read somewhere that having Broadcom devices for both ethernet and wireless causes some sort of issue with the Broadcom wireless firmware. I found a script that supposedly helps address this bug, but my Linux experience and skill level isn't that advanced yet. There was a page full of scripting code, but I didn't know what to do with it... (I'd post the link here, but that disappeared with one of the multiple reloads I've performed on my quest for wireless connectivity.)
If anybody has a solution to my issue, I would be eternally grateful. I've really been looking forward to getting more in depth with BackBox, but there's not much point in keeping a pentest distro if you can't get the wireless to work...
Thank you all in advance for any assistance you can offer.