Kali Linux wifi problems from HP laptop original OS Vista

[xthexxdudex]

heya! I'm new to linux, and I hpe nobody else has to deal with the hours of slamming my head against several forum walls looking for what the issue was with my wifi. so Ilook up how to turn on wifi (or something similar) and I read that i need to right click on the network connection indicator (looks like an ethernet jack) then select enable wifi well the issue is that was not working. I also tried some of the nm(nmtui, nmcli) commands from the terminal i also did the iwlist stuff but none of it worked. so I look more into it and discover a forum post from 2015 which linked to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom_wireless#broadcom-wl read into that a bit I found that you could discover the device id and "chipset name" of my "Broadcom wireless network device" (I'm not sure exactly what that is beyond the fact that it had to have been the hardware that was disabled from the radio menu in the nmtui ...ui) so to find out what I had i needed to run the following:
"lspci -vnn -d 14e4:"

just using the command lspci gave me a bit of a messy terminal ( the rest of the command/whatever must've filtered out most of it) and i could not understand what any of it was or what it had to do with wifi, (just typing up my experience to give anybody else that goes to google looking for help because they want to run linux like the f****ng flintstones intended, on a dinosaur)
so i typed the above command into the terminal. which (for me) returned (among another three or four lines)
"02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)"

so now I looked for anything in the wiki that had any of the same words/combination of numbers, "brcm" was all over the place, so I am headed the right direction! later in the text I find that firmware-b43legacy should be used for BCM4312 "jackpot!" i do a bit of a Rick Astley dance as I type in:
"sudo apt-get -y install firmware-b43legacy-installer"
then I
then

 

[xthexxdudex]

(sorrry, I think i ran into problem with the length of the post {oh... it seems like it was working but the text box just didnt scroll down for me...bummer...}anyway!)
Then I type "reboot" into the terminal, and continue dancing as Linux loads back up! AAAAAAAAaand...it seems like the wifi STILL was not working, but I didn't give up! again I hit the forums and wikis until finally the banging of my head against the walls of text I did not understand finally turned up a small and simple nugget of wisdom!!!

Broadcom BCM43142 802.11 bgn still not working with Kali 2. [Archive] - Kali Linux Forums

Hi guys, just as I expected, my Broadcom BCM43142 802.11 bgn Wi-Fi Adapter is still not working with Kali 2. I did a clean install, but after boot there was no option for wireless connections. On Windows everything works fine. lspci successfully detects my network card, so that's not it. I...

forums.kali.org

it seems someone (who seemed to know more than me) was facing a similar problem at some point the REAL hero of our story g0tm1lk chimed in with a few cents:


"I know there is various licensing things with b43...
Make sure to have 'firmware-b43-installer' and firmware-b43legacy-installer' installed (apt-get -y install firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer).
More information: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/#firmware"

could it be just as simple as I had missed something?

I fire up the terminal one last time as my Bladder comes close to bursting, and morning sits just a few hours away:

 

[xthexxdudex]

(sheesh it happened again.. anyway)
"sudo apt-get -y install firmware-b43-installer"

I rush to the restroom, hoping to relieve myself as linux worked it's magic. I come back refreshed, excited to reboot!

only to discover that I had to input my account credentials... well a few minutes later, the moment of truth arrives as I type "reboot" one last time before my heavy eyelids take me down (by the way, I had to use my phone to do research, then plug in ethernet cable to GET the drivers installed{think that's what they're called... drivers}, I live a short walk from my router in another building) and Kali Linux boots up and BOOM I am hit with a window telling me that some networks require a password to be connected( I had tried adding the ssid manually before anything else, and I guess it remembered!) I right click the connection button/ethernet jack at the top right and there it is!!!!

 

[xthexxdudex]

Enable Networking
Enable Wi-Fi
blahblah
blah
blahblahblah

artist rendition of the rightclick menu of the connection button... because Kali is boring and doesnt want me sharing screenprints of sensitive info...I was going to edit it Kali...jeez

anyway, I can only hope this helps anyone facing this issue in the future, and if you stumble upon this, after it has been archived, it can only mean one thing...that I am dead, and you are the heir to the small wealth of knowledge I have regarding connecting a linux to wifi if it has a broadcom bcm4312 thank you, and good night.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums
Kali is not designed for the beginner, you are expected to be Linux conversant and terminal competent to solve your own problems
Kali is loosly based on Ubuntu, so arch and slack fixes will not work.
I am going to assume you have a broadcom 43*** wi-fi, and the lappy is quite old,

try

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

 

[xthexxdudex]

Welcome to the forums
Kali is not designed for the beginner, you are expected to be Linux conversant and terminal competent to solve your own problems
Kali is loosly based on Ubuntu, so arch and slack fixes will not work.
I am going to assume you have a broadcom 43*** wi-fi, and the lappy is quite old,

try

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

I have gathered that! it was a neat little journey though, learning and such. I'm pretty sure I would've run into the same problem if I installed Ubuntu, from what I gathered the driver I needed for wifi is not native to linux and has to be installed manually? Could be I'm making that up thoug. I've got Ubuntu on a VM on my desktop, but I couldn't find a 32 bit version of Ubuntu to install on this "lappy"(I love that btw) so knowing i want to get into Cybersec I decided I'd install Kali and just explore it a bit every day.

 

[Brickwizard]

If you are trying to access the onboard Wi-Fi from a VM you can't, you can only access it through the host OS via the bridge. To connect the vm direct via Wi-Fi you will need a USB dongle and change the USB parameters in the VM.

If you are installing ANY Debian/Ubuntu based distribution direct to the harddrive, and you have a BCM 43 then my instructions should work

 

[Brickwizard]

Do you know the full spec of the laptop, I think it should be 64 bit ,in which case you can install say Mint LMDE or Parrot home and add the "Tools" to that ,
32 bit has already been discontinued by most distributions if you need a 32 bit then ask