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This article details how to install and setup a Broadcom wireless network device.
Can't install drivers for my Broadcom 43142 (self.linuxmint) submitted 4 years ago. by miguextreme Hi guys, I'm a newbie when it cames to linux and after some research I've decided that Mint was the best option but I'm having many problems trying to install the drivers for my wireless card that is a Broadcom 43142. The Broadcom BCM4322 Wireless Controller in the old Apple MacBook late 2008 is not recognized by default. But if you have the opportunity to temporarily make a wired internet connection, then this issue can be solved within a few minutes by going through the below steps in Linux Mint. 1) Connect your computer via a network cable.
- 3Installation
- 3.3broadcom-wl
- 4Troubleshooting
History
Broadcom has a noted history with its support for Wi-Fi devices regarding GNU/Linux. For a good portion of its initial history, Broadcom devices were either entirely unsupported or required the user to tinker with the firmware. The limited set of wireless devices that were supported were done so by a reverse-engineered driver. The reverse-engineered
b43
driver was introduced in the 2.6.24 kernel.In August 2008, Broadcom released the 802.11 Linux STA driver officially supporting Broadcom wireless devices on GNU/Linux. This is a restrictively licensed driver and it does not work with hidden ESSIDs, but Broadcom promised to work towards a more open approach in the future.
In September 2010, Broadcom released a fully open source driver. The brcm80211 driver was introduced in the 2.6.37 kernel and in the 2.6.39 kernel it was sub-divided into the
brcmsmac
and brcmfmac
drivers.The types of available drivers are:
Driver | Description |
---|---|
brcm80211 | Kernel driver mainline version (recommended) |
b43 | Kernel driver reverse-engineered version |
broadcom-wl | Broadcom driver with restricted license |
Driver selection
To know what driver(s) are operable on the computer's Broadcom wireless network device, the device ID and chipset name will need to be detected. Cross-reference them with the driver list of supported brcm80211 and b43 devices.
Installation
brcm80211
The kernel contains two built-in open-source drivers: brcmfmac for native FullMAC and brcmsmac for mac80211-based SoftMAC. They should be automatically loaded when booting.
Note:- brcmfmac supports newer chipsets, and supports AP mode, P2P mode, or hardware encryption.
- brcmsmac only supports old chipsets like BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225.
b43
Two reverse-engineered open-source drivers are built-in to the kernel: b43 and b43legacy. b43 supports most newer Broadcom chipsets, while the b43legacy driver only supports the early BCM4301 and BCM4306 rev.2 chipsets. To avoid erroneous detection of your WiFi card's chipset, blacklist the unused driver.
Both of these drivers require non-free firmware to function. Install b43-firmwareAUR or b43-firmware-classicAUR.
Note:- BCM4306 rev.3, BCM4311, BCM4312 and BCM4318 rev.2 have been noticed to experience problems with b43-firmware. Use b43-firmware-classicAUR for these cards instead.
- BCM4331 noticed to have problems with b43-firmware-classic. Use b43-firmwareAUR for this card instead.
broadcom-wl
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason: Is it still necessary to mention the blacklist override? (Discuss in Talk:Broadcom wireless#Installation: broadcom-wl is in the official repos now)
There are two variants of the restrictively licensed driver:
- the regular variant: broadcom-wl
- the DKMS variant: broadcom-wl-dkms
- is kernel agnostic. This means it supports different kernels you may use (e.g. linux-ckAUR).
- is kernel-release agnostic, too. It will be automatically rebuilt after every kernel upgrade or fresh installation. If you use broadcom-wl or another kernel release dependant variant (e.g. broadcom-wl-ckAUR), it may happen that kernel upgrades break wireless from time to time until the packages are in sync again.
- will need the linux-headers package for the installed kernel(s) in order to build the module. Those packages are optional to the DKMS package and will need to be installed manually.
Offline installation
An Internet connection is the ideal way to install the broadcom-wl driver; many newer laptops with Broadcom cards forgo Ethernet ports, so a USB Ethernet adapter or Android tethering may be helpful. If you have neither, you'll need to first install the base-devel group during installation. Then, use another Internet-connected computer to download linux-headers and the driver tarball from the AUR, and install them in that order.
Manually
Warning: This method is not recommended. Drivers that are un-tracked can become problematic or nonfunctional on system updates.
Install the appropriate driver for your system architecture from Broadcom's website. After this, to avoid driver/module collisions with similar modules and make the driver available, do:
The wl module should automatically load lib80211 or lib80211_crypt_tkip otherwise they will have to be manually loaded.
If the driver does not work at this point, you may need to update dependencies:
To make the module load at boot, refer to Kernel modules. It is recommending that you blacklist conflicting modules.
Troubleshooting
Setting broadcom-wl in monitor mode
This article or section needs expansion.
Reason: Explain what is monitor mode (at least briefly) and why one would want to use it (Discuss in Talk:Broadcom wireless#)
To set broadcom-wl in monitor mode you have to set 1 to
/proc/brcm_monitor0)
:It will create a new network interface called
prism0
.To work in monitor mode, use this newly created network interface.
Device inaccessible after kernel upgrade
Since the 3.3.1 kernel the bcma module was introduced. If using a brcm80211 driver be sure it has not been blacklisted. It should be blackisted if using a b43 driver.
Hp Broadcom Wireless Driver Download
If you are using broadcom-wl, uninstall and reinstall it after upgrading your kernel or switch to broadcom-wl-dkms package.
Device with broadcom-wl driver not working/showing
Be sure the correct modules are blacklisted and occasionally it may be necessary to blacklist the brcm80211 drivers if accidentally detected before the wl driver is loaded. Furthermore, update the modules dependencies
depmod -a
, verify the wireless interface with ip addr
, kernel upgrades will require an upgrade of the non-DKMS package.Linux Mint 19 Wireless Driver
Interfaces swapped with broadcom-wl
Users of the broadcom-wl driver may find their Ethernet and Wi-Fi interfaces have been swapped. See Network configuration#Network interfaces for an answer.
Interface is showing but not allowing connections
Append the following kernel parameter:
Suppressing console messages
You may continuously get some verbose and annoying messages during the boot, similar to
To disable those messages, increase the loglevel of printk messages that get through to the console - see Silent boot#sysctl.
Device BCM43241 not detected
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason: The brcm80211 Wireless Wiki page lists this chip as supported SDIO device since Linux kernel 3.7. (Discuss in Talk:Broadcom wireless#)
This device will not display with either
lspci
nor lsusb
; there is no known solution yet. Please remove this section when resolved.Connection is unstable with some routers
If no other approaches help, install linux-lts, or use a previous driver version.
No 5GHz for BCM4360 (14e4:43a0) / BCM43602 (14e4:43ba) devices
Issue appears to be linked to a channel issue. Changing the wireless channel to a lower channel number (like 40) seems to allow connection to 5GHz bands.
Device works intermittently
In some cases (e.g. using BCM4331 and b43-firmwareAUR), wifi connection works intermittently. One way to fix this is to check if the card is hard-blocked or soft-blocked by kernel, and if it is, unblock it with rfkill.
Retrieved from 'https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Broadcom_wireless&oldid=579270'
Linux has come a long way with hardware support, but if you have a wireless card that still does not have native Linux drivers you might be able to get the card working with a Windows driver and ndiswrapper.
Using a Windows driver inside of Linux may also give you faster transfer rates or better encryption support depending on your wireless card.
If your wireless card is working, it is not recommended to install the Windows driver just for fun because it could cause a conflict with the native Linux driver.
Download Wireless Card Driver
The first thing you need to do is figure out what wireless card you have. There are a couple ways to do this and some involve finding the device chipset and others involve scouring through system logs.
The easiest method is to just look at the device itself, if you have an external wireless card, or search your manufactures website for what wireless card came with your computer, if you have an internal wireless card.
Once you know what wireless adapter you are trying to install, go to the manufacturer’s website to download the Windows drivers for the device.
If at all possible, you should try to download the 32-bit Windows XP drivers in .zip format rather than .exe. If you don’t have an option, select the latest Windows driver that your manufacturer provides.
Extract Wireless Driver
To extract the files, browse to the .exe or .zip file, right click on it, and select open with archive manager.
Note: Although archive manager can extract both .exe and .zip files, sometimes the files within the .exe may not work with ndiswrapper.
Click extract at the top and copy all the files to an easy to find location.
Install Ndiswrapper
Ndiswrapper is the tool that allows Linux to use Windows drivers for wireless card support.
To install it in Ubuntu go to the Software Center and search for ndisgtk.
Note: Linux Mint comes with ndiswrapper installed.
Install Windows Driver
Now that you have your wireless driver extracted and ndiswrapper installed, open Windows Wireless Drivers from the System -> Administration menu.
In the window that opens, click on install new driver and browse to where you extracted the driver.
Sometimes the .inf files will be in sub-folders inside the driver so you may need to dig around to locate the right file to use.
After you select the .inf file for your wireless card click install. It will take a couple minutes to install the driver so be patient while it works.
After the driver is installed the main window will indicate if you selected the right .inf file by telling you if the hardware is present or not. If you selected the wrong driver the first time you can try installing a different .inf file that was extracted from the driver.
If none of the .inf files work you may want to try the driver for the same card for a different version of Windows (e.g. XP, Vista, 7).
https://monstersrenew710.weebly.com/gravity-well-game.html. After you get the right driver installed click configure network to open Ubuntu network connections and connect to your wireless network.
If you are still having trouble you may want to check out the ndiswrapper wiki to see if others have had success with the wireless card.
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