Need help getting WiFi on Macbook Air that I just setup with dual boot for PoP OS

[SuperWookie68]

Hey everyone! So I decided to give it the ol college try and figure out how to dual boot my older 2013-ish MacBook Air laptop with PoP OS. It was a BEARRRR of a challenge just to get a IOS onto a USB. Then a nightmare to actually install the OS on Mac. I had to do all sorts of crazy partitioning and what not, but FINALLY after 6 hrs of messing around with it at work today (we're really slow, haha) I got it! I feel pretty proud of myself. I set it up so that it will have Mac OS on 1 part of the drive and PoP on the other. It apparently still has my Mac OS on the larger partition of the drive and PoP OS is definitely working. I'm just afraid to reboot the computer and check at this point, in case there is something I need to do on the PoP OS side to make choosing which OS to boot into, haha. If there IS anything I need to do, please, let me know. I'm in no rush to use this laptop and don't want to screw anything up.

But now I've got a new problem... I can't find any setting on the new PoP OS that allows me to turn on WiFi and connect to the internet?! And after digging into it for a few mins on google, it seems to be a pretty common problem for PoP OS and one that may or may not be solvable? And could potentially be a LOT of work to setup?

When I pull up Show Launcher and type in WiFi, it pulls up the System Settings and says: No Wi-Fi Adapter Found. Make sure you have a Wi-Fi adapter plugged and turned on. Which I do obviously, it came with my MacBook. It's inside and works. So why is not working with PoP?! This is crazy frustrating to do all this work, JUST to get the ISO onto a USB, then install it all. And now this.

Someone, somewhere on the internet said to type this command in to see that you have a card and which one it is. The command was: sudo lshw -c network
Not sure if this will help at all, but here is what it spit out:

So I'm here asking for help on HOW to get WiFi setup on my newly installed PoP OS. Thank you

The MacBook Air is from around 2013. Intel Chip. 8GB of Ram, 500GB SSD and PoP is the newest version, I think that means it's 22.04 LTS?

 

[Brickwizard]

Your problem is more likely to be no driver installed, connect the machine to the net by cable or tethered mobile, open menu, find package manager, open and find Broadcom BCM43 fw cutter and install, if you don't have a software manager
do it via synaptic's

Pop is a specialist distribution made by and for system 76 and their products, if it installs without issue great, it not don't waste your time trying to fix it

 

[KGIII]

I feel pretty proud of myself.

Congratulations.

Is there an airplane mode? It looks like you have wireless drivers to me. (It's in the configuration section.)

 

[SuperWookie68]

Your problem is more likely to be no driver installed, connect the machine to the net by cable or tethered mobile, open menu, find package manager, open and find Broadcom BCM43 fw cutter and install, if you don't have a software manager
do it via synaptic's

Pop is a specialist distribution made by and for system 76 and their products, if it installs without issue great, it not don't waste your time trying to fix it

Uggghhhhh, this is turning into a lot. I've been searching for answers and it looks like the ONLY way I'll be able to connect to the internet is by buying a USB WiFi dongle. Because my partner and I only have iPhones and you can't tether iPhones to PoP OS. And my Macbook Air does not have ethernet ports. So after doing research, it turns out that the ONLY way I'll be able to connect this to the internet now is with a USB WiFi dongle. If it's more than 5-10 bucks, then I'm out.

But if I can get one cheap and make this work, then I really want to try. As I really like PoP OS. ESPECIALLY for a laptop with it's incredible window tiling and finger gestures. Plus I just really like it. Plus I just put in a whole day of working on this just to get it installed and don't want to lose all that work I did for nothing. We'll see. Thank you for the info. I may need more help if or when I can find a USB wifi dongle.

Thank you

 

[SuperWookie68]

Congratulations.

Is there an airplane mode? It looks like you have wireless drivers to me. (It's in the configuration section.)

There is an Airplane Mode on PoP. But the only thing I can do is turn it on, which says it turns OFF WiFi and bluetooth, etc. Not sure how it having Airplane mode will help me? Care to explain in detail. And you are saying that it shows a driver in configuration section. I do see that now. But again, I don't know what that means or entails or how it can help me get WiFi on. I'm very new to Linux and don't know a ton about computers. Thanks

 

[KGIII]

Not sure how it having Airplane mode will help me?

Not the OS, the physical laptop itself.

And you are saying that it shows a driver in configuration section.

Yes, there is a driver in use, according to the output in your screenshot. It should 'just work' at this point, at least I should think so.

Which makes me think you might have some sort of 'hard lock' enabled on the device itself. I'm not fluent in Apple products, so you'll need a search engine to see if there's an airplane mode or a way to turn the wireless off and on.

 

[SuperWookie68]

Not the OS, the physical laptop itself.

Oh, ok. Yeah, the PoP OS has a setting screen that says WiFi and airplane mode. But my Macbook Air does NOT have a physical button on the keyboard, nor a setting that turns ON of OFF any type of airplane mode. You can only turn on or off the wifi or bluetooth. And wifi is turned on.

Yes, there is a driver in use, according to the output in your screenshot. It should 'just work' at this point, at least I should think so.

Yeah, you would think, hahaha

Which makes me think you might have some sort of 'hard lock' enabled on the device itself. I'm not fluent in Apple products, so you'll need a search engine to see if there's an airplane mode or a way to turn the wireless off and on.

I don't have any 'hard lock' on in my Macbook. The WiFi is on. I even tried connecting to a network at the boot screen that allows me to chose MacOS or PoP OS. I connect to that, then boot up PoP and still nothing

 

[Brickwizard]

I may need more help if or when I can find a USB wifi dongle.

look for one with the RTL8188 chipset, it works OTB on most Debian based distributions and they are cheap

 

[Brickwizard]

I only have iPhones

I have tetherd my I phone 7 to my laptop

 

[SuperWookie68]

look for one with the RTL8188 chipset, it works OTB on most Debian based distributions and they are cheap

So quick question, did you see the other response from KGIII? He says I already have a driver. Did you see that photo I posted? It says: driver=bcma-pci-bridge latency=0. Is that not a driver? And are you still thinking I need to get connected to the internet with a USB wifi dongle and find package manager, open and find Broadcom BCM43 fw cutter and install?

 

[SuperWookie68]

I have tetherd my I phone 7 to my laptop

How do you do that? I have an iphone 13, that only has a lightning cable slot on the bottom. And it runs iOS17.4.1

 

[Brickwizard]

driver=bcma-pci-bridge latency=0. I

no but that doesn't look like dual boot to me , that looks like you have put pop in a VM/VB, in which case it cannot directly access the net itself, all connections are made by the host OS via a bridge connection, to make a VM/VB to have an independent access you will need a USB dongle and will also need to set the parameters for the USB in the VM/VB

 

[Brickwizard]

Im old and miserable, my I7 only runs IOS 15,
use the USB to lightning cable to connect to the primary USB slot on your laptop [it is usually the one closest to the power input] and set it up in the usual way [this won't work if as my last post thinks you are using a VM/VB]

 

[SuperWookie68]

no but that doesn't look like dual boot to me , that looks like you have put pop in a VM/VB, in which case it cannot directly access the net itself, all connections are made by the host OS via a bridge connection, to make a VM/VB to have an independent access you will need a USB dongle and will also need to set the parameters for the USB in the VM/VB

So it is a dual boot. I can assure you that. I worked on this all day today and it took forever. It's actually pretty cool that I was able to learn as I went, followed a really good help tutorial from someone on Reddit who did the exact same thing I wanted to do. And when it was all said and done, sure enough, PoP is there and so is Mac. I rebooted back into MacOS a few times to check certain things about this WiFi issue.

 

[Brickwizard]

well if your sure you have a duel boot [a w-fi bridge is usably only associated with a VM/VB,] then you will need to download the legacy Broadcom BCM 43 fw cutter which will build the correct driver and dependencies for your chipset [as said before you will need a wired connection of some sort, [do you not have any friends or family who can give you a wired access?]

 

[SuperWookie68]

well if your sure you have a duel boot [a w-fi bridge is usably only associated with a VM/VB,] then you will need to download the legacy Broadcom BCM 43 fw cutter which will build the correct driver and dependencies for your chipset [as said before you will need a wired connection of some sort, [do you not have any friends or family who can give you a wired access?]

I'm 100% sure I have dual boot setup. I did it myself today.

And I got my iphone to provide internet for the Laptop! Yay! Now on to try and figure out how to get this driver for the Broadcom BCM43 fw cutter

 

[SuperWookie68]

I found this website, and did exactly as it said, typed in all the commands prior to put in the command for my NIC card and NOTHING! It didn't allow WiFi to work?! But it did update some stuff. This is what it spit back at me after I put in the sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer/linux-firmware
sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer/linux-firmware
[sudo] password for ryan:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Package firmware-b43-installer is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Release 'linux-firmware' for 'firmware-b43-installer' was not found

Then I read a bit more up top, and typed in the command to find the exact model I need to use or something. And instead of BCM4360, it actually says it's PCI.ID # is 14e4:43a0} 9rev 03). And that command to put in after sudo apt install is: Special Case #3. So I put that in. And guess what??? NOTHING happened AGAIN! Here is what it spit out:
sudo apt install Special Case #3
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package Special
E: Unable to locate package Case

This is just ALL SORTS of fun, hahaha

Not sure how I'm supposed to get this driver for this old NIC card? So far, not having much luck. Going to keep at it. Let me know if you find anything

 

[SuperWookie68]

HAHAHAHA, so after typing in a million different commands from a bunch of different websites all claiming to know how to solve my WiFi NIC problem, at some point, it just worked! I don't know what did it, or how it got fixed, but I have WiFi now and jimmy crack corn and I don't care, haha. Got my PoP!_OS up and running, installed a theme, some icons a cursor and here's my screenshot of my new DE on my old MacBook Air! Thanks guys. Not sure how it got fixed, but it works now.