Fix for ~Module w1 not found in directory~ for USB Persistence Users

17 May 2016

This is a crosspost from my Kali Linux Forum post.

I finally installed my wifi correctly after a week of debugging.

For some reason even after I “apt-update”, “apt-upgrade”, “apt dist-upgrade”, and rebooted, my kernel was not updated. So, basically I downloaded the old 4.3.0 headers and installed them.

Here is some basic information about my perstistence usb drive and how I installed it:

• 500 GB Hard Drive (Seagate)
• Installed using most recent (2016.1) kali iso from torrent
• Drive is persistent
• I’m running side by side with Mac OSX El Capitan
• I’m using rEFind as my boot manager
• I have BCM4360 driver

Tutorial:

1. Navigate to /etc/apt/list and copy and paste this:
   • deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free
   • deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free
   • deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
   • deb http://old.kali.org/kali moto main non-free contrib
2. run apt-get update
3. Download from http://ftp.tku.edu.tw/kali/pool/main/l/linux/:
   • linux-headers-4.3.0-kali1-amd64_4.3.3-5kali4_amd64.deb” and “linux-headers-4.3.0-kali1-common_4.3.3-5kali4_amd64.deb
4. Download from http://http.kali.org/kali/pool/main/l/linux-tools/ , “linux-kbuild-4.3_4.3.1-2kali1_amd64.deb”
5. Download package gdebi package (both gui and main one) through the package manager
6. Open up gdebi GUI
7. Install each package listed above using gdebi GUI, starting with the “linux-kbuild” package, followed by the “linux_headers_common”, then the “linux_headers”
8. Ok, here’s the important part: DO NOT RUN “apt-update” right after!!!
9. Instead, run: “apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms”
10. Run: “modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac”
11. Run: “modprobe wl”
12. Run: “reboot”
13. And boom! Your wifi should be working!

If you want to see how I installed my live persistence usb, just look for my last post!

Hopes this helps! I’m sure relieved that I finally figured it out . It took me more than 80 hours to figure it out after looking all over google, stackoverfow, reddit, and kali forums .

Here’s my rambling about my debugging problems if you are interested: The problem with kali’s usb persistence is that the kernel seems to not be able to upgrade, even after “apt-update”, “apt-upgrade”, “apt dist-upgrade”.(when I ran “uname -r” it returned 4.3.0 instead of 4.5.0). Still, when I ran “apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed ‘s,[^-]-[^-]-,,’) broadcom-sta-dkms” I got drivers for 4.5.0… weird…

So, yeah I tried the debian broadcom “wl” tutorial and had no luck