Saturday, October 16, 2010

WifiDocsDriverbcm43xx - Community Ubuntu Documentation

This page aims at getting your Broadcom BCM43xx PCI based wireless network card working. The proprietary drivers can be activated under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers using an existing Internet connection (Ethernet or USB) for best results. If you experience troubles activating follow the instructions on this page for your particular scenario.

Broadcom BCM43xx Chipset (PCI)

Identifying Your Card/Driver

In a terminal the command lspci will display information about all PCI devices attached to your computer.

To display only devices manufactured by Broadcom (including wifi cards), apply a filter for "14e4" as follows: 

~$ lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

The following is an example of the information required to identify your card type and typical lspci output.

  • CHIPSET - BCM4322
  • PCI-ID - [14e4:432b]

Note: the PCI-ID is of particular importance. 

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01)

Unsupported cards

If you are unable to use the b43 kernel driver or the b43/STA hybrid driver, you will need to go for ndiswrapper - this will allow you to use closed source drivers to activate your wifi card.

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Installing b43/STA hybrid drivers

9.10 (Karmic Koala), 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

Supported models, mostly found on Dell hardware, include:

BCM4311, BCM4312, BCM4313, BCM4321, BCM4322, BCM43224, BCM43225

b43/STA - Internet access

Step 1.

Install the b43/STA hybrid drivers/firmware from the restricted repository using the Software Centre or the Synaptic Package Manager (Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager) and search for the bcmwl-kernel-source package and install or in a terminal (under the desktop menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) issue the following commands: 

~$ sudo apt-get update ~$ sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Step 2.

Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers, the STA drivers can be activated for use.

Note: A computer restart may be required before using the wifi card.

LiveCD/LiveUSB

For temporary use with the LiveCD and LiveUSB environments, simply use the Software Centre or the Synaptic Package Manager to search for and install the bcmwl-kernel-source package. Refer to Step 1 and Step 2 of the instructions above.

Step 3.

Instead of a computer restart, in a terminal issue the following commands: 

~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl ~$ sudo modprobe wl

Note: Allow several seconds for the network manager to scan for available networks before attempting a connection.

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b43/STA - No Internet access

If you do not have any other means of Internet access on your computer, you will have to install the bcmwl-kernel-source package from the restricted folder under ../pool/restricted/b/bcmwl on the Ubuntu install media.

Step 1.

Navigate the install media and double click to install bcmwl-kernel-source (10.10 Maverick Meerkat) or navigate the install media and install these packages consecutively in a terminal (under the desktop menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

../pool/main/d/dkms 

:/dkms/$ sudo dpkg -i dkms*

../pool/main/p/patch 

:/patch/$ sudo dpkg -i patch*

../pool/main/f/fakeroot 

:/fakeroot/$ sudo dpkg -i fakeroot*

../pool/restricted/b/bcmwl 

:/bcmwl/$ sudo dpkg -i bcmwl-kernel-source*

Step 2.

Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers, the STA drivers can be activated for use.

Note: A computer restart may be required before using the wifi card.

LiveCD/LiveUSB

Note: The install media contents are mounted under /cdrom of the filesystem.

Step 3.

For temporary use with the LiveCD and LiveUSB environments, instead of a computer restart, in a terminal issue the following commands: 

~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl ~$ sudo modprobe wl

Note: Allow several seconds for the network manager to scan for available networks before attempting a connection.

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Installing BCM43xx drivers

8.04 (Hardy Heron), 9.10 (Karmic Koala), 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

Supported models include:

BCM4301 BCM4306/2, BCM4306/3, BCM4311, BCM4312, BCM4318, BCM4320

The Ubuntu kernel in versions 8.04.x (Hardy Heron) and higher do provide the b43 drivers, however due to copyright restrictions not the proprietary firmware which is required to run your card. See here for a list of known PCI devices and their available modes as well as supported/unsupported chipsets.

The following instructions explain how to extract the required firmware.

b43 - Internet access

If you have some other kind of Internet access on your computer, you can download the firmware by simply installing the b43-fwcutter package which does the download and setup for you automatically.

b43-fwcutter.png

Step 1.

To install b43-fwcutter issue the following command in a terminal (under the desktop menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and follow the prompts: 

~$ sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

Step 2.

Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers, the b43 drivers can be activated for use.

Note: A computer restart may be required before using the wifi card.

LiveCD/LiveUSB

Step 3.

For temporary use with the LiveCD and LiveUSB environments, instead of a computer restart, in a terminal issue the following commands: 

~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ~$ sudo modprobe b43

Note: Allow several seconds for the network manager to scan for available networks before attempting a connection.

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b43 - No Internet access

If you do not have any other means of Internet access on your computer, you will have to install b43-fwcutter and patch packages from the install media. After that you will need to setup firmware manually (without the firmware automatically downloading and being set up).

Setp 1.

b43-fwcutter is located on the Ubuntu install media under ../pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/ and patch is located under ../pool/main/p/patch/ or both in the official repositories online.

Double click on the package to install or in a terminal (under the desktop menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) navigate to the folder containing the package and issue the following command: 

:/b43-fwcutter/$ sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter*

Step 2.

On a computer with Internet access, download the required firmware files from http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o and http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

Step 3.

Copy the downloaded files to your home folder and execute the following commands consecutively in a terminal to extract and install the firmware: 

~$ tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 ~$ sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o ~$ sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

Step 4.

Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers, the b43 drivers can be activated for use.

Note: A computer restart may be required before using the wifi card.

LiveCD/LiveUSB

Note: The install media contents are mounted under /cdrom of the filesystem.

Step 5.

For temporary use with the LiveCD and LiveUSB environments, instead of a computer restart, in a terminal issue the following commands: 

~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb ~$ sudo modprobe b43

Note: Allow several seconds for the network manager to scan for available networks before attempting a connection.

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Technical Support

b43 Kernel Driver

b43/STA Hybrid Driver

Ubuntu

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See Also

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CategoryHardware CategoryNetworking CategoryWireless

via help.ubuntu.com

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