[How To]Installing Broadcom Wireless In Fedora 8/9/10

[David Vazquez]

I have noticed here and on a couple of other forums as well that in Linux, with the downfall of NDISwrapper, it has been very difficult to get a lot of wireless cards working and especially Broadcom.

However, I stumbled accross an article that explains how to install Broadcom cards in three simple steps. It requires no knowledge of Linux, and all you have to do is just copy and paste but the commands are so short that you can just type them yourself.

I'm not one to plagerize so I will re-write the article in my own words:

if it needs the 2.6.27.9.159 kernel you can download that from updates-testing repo by enabling it

yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update kernel

you may also need kernel-headers an kernel-devel if you have them installed already

Thanks Demz!

Here we go:
Please make sure that you have an ethernet cord hooked up to your computer or check the bottom of the post for offline RPMs.

Step 1: Enable the RPM Fusion Repository
To install the packages that are required to follow this guide, you must enable the proper repository. You need to do this through terminal only because these source packages are in the forms of .RPM files.
I would recommend to SU in as root before you do anything because if I do sudo I get an error. If you don't know how type this code and enter your root password:

su -

Now copy and paster this code into the terminal. These files are small so it takes practically no time on a fast connection.

su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'

Step 2: Update System and Install Required Packages
This is the simple part. Continue to be su'ed in as root and type in these commands.

su -
yum -y update
yum -y install broadcom-wl

The only part that might take long in these series of commands might be the update part.

Step 3: Enjoy Your Wireless
That's it your all done. Enjoy your wireless and you can now hook up to your preferred wireless network.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Offline Installation: Not Recommended
Okay, this is the offline installation. I do not recommend this because I never got it working, but I'm sure if you have a router, you are able to hook up anyway.

You need a Flash drive or other removable media for this

Its simple! Download these packages and install them on your Fedora System.

The RPMs you'll need for offline installation are broadcom-wl, kmod-wl and kmod-wl-uname-r. For example, for F10 x86_64 (kernel = 2.6.27.5-117) you would need the following RPMs:

broadcom-wl-5.10.27.6-3.fc10.noarch.rpm
kmod-wl-5.10.27.6-5.fc10.5.x86_64.rpm
kmod-wl-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64-5.10.27.6-5.fc10.5.x86_64.rpm

You can find these here: http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/releases/

There you go!

All done. Enjoy your Wireless and drop me a PM or e-mail and I will be happy to help!

~Dave

[Hlingler]

Looks like a very good How-To, so I'm moving it to the "Guides and How-Tos" forum. Send me a PM if any problems/questions.

V

[shivampatel]

Thanks for your easy installation guide.

I am getting this dependency error when I tried installing broadcom via yum: (check the last line below). Can you suggest a resolution for this?

[root@localhost ~]# yum -y install broadcom-wl
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package broadcom-wl.noarch 0:5.10.27.6-3.fc10 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: wl-kmod >= 5.10.27.6 for package: broadcom-wl
--> Running transaction check
---> Package kmod-wl.x86_64 0:5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64 = 5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8 for package: kmod-wl
--> Running transaction check
---> Package kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64.x86_64 0:5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: kernel-uname-r = 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64 for package: kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64-5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8.x86_64 from rpmfusion-nonfree-updates has depsolving problems
--> Missing Dependency: kernel-uname-r = 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64 is needed by package kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64-5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8.x86_64 (rpmfusion-nonfree-updates)
Error: Missing Dependency: kernel-uname-r = 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64 is needed by package kmod-wl-2.6.27.9-159.fc10.x86_64-5.10.27.6-5.fc10.8.x86_64 (rpmfusion-nonfree-updates)

[Demz]

if it needs the 2.6.27.9.159 kernel you can download that from updates-testing repo by enabling it

yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update kernel

you may also need kernel-headers an kernel-devel if you have them installed already

[David Vazquez]

Oh, yes thank you. I forgot to mention that in the guide.

[Zigzagcom]

The "broadcom-wl" method from rpmfusion worked for me with this kernel: 2.6.27.7-134.fc10.x86_64

Also, I don't have kernel-devel or kernel-headers:
# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.x86_64
kernel-firmware-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.noarch
kernel-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64
kerneloops-0.12-1.fc10.x86_64

[bd54338rre]

The "broadcom-wl" method from rpmfusion worked for me with this kernel: 2.6.27.7-134.fc10.x86_64

Also, I don't have kernel-devel or kernel-headers:
# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.x86_64
kernel-firmware-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.noarch
kernel-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64
kerneloops-0.12-1.fc10.x86_64

yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers

when this doen't work:
go here:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/b...?buildID=72767
download kernel-devel, and kernel header.
install both kernel-versions
since u have got only one kernel:

My outout:

]$ rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.6.27.10-167.fc10.i686
kernel-firmware-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.noarch
kernel-devel-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.i686
kernel-firmware-2.6.27.10-167.fc10.noarch
kerneloops-0.12-1.fc10.i386
kernel-devel-2.6.27.10-167.fc10.i686
kernel-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.i686
kernel-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686
kernel-devel-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686
kernel-headers-2.6.27.10-167.fc10.i386

Install rpm's by rpm -i

[Zigzagcom]

Actually I had two kernels in the output.

kernel-2.6.27.7-134.fc10.x86_64
kernel-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64

Yesterday evening I got the latest via updates, including updates for my wireless. This is quite nice, compared to the old days, where you had to manually install newer drivers.

I still don't have kernel-devel and kernel-headers installed. My point was that I don't need them for wireless to work.

[Demz]

you only need them if u use the akmod stuff

[BlueC]

I'm not one to plagerize so I will re-write the article in my own words:

Ahh! I guess any similarity to this guide that I wrote over a month ago is purely coincidental then?

Nice guide though, and I'm happy to see people using this driver instead of ndiswrapper - at least my work isn't going to waste! I have an updated driver version too (5.10.27.11) that will be in rpmfusion repos within a couple of days - it apparently fixes some stability issue with OEM hardware.

[akugel]

My FC9 wireless broke during a recent system upgrade. I couldn't get it working again with broadcom-wl; I eventually got it working (despite a wlan0 bootup error message) with b43legacy.
My wireless card is "Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)".

[chupman]

Just upgraded to F11 and to get this working I had to blacklist b43 and ssb.To do this edit /etc/modprove.d/blacklist and add

#wireless
blacklist b43
blacklist ssb

[djbailey]

Thanks a ton for this fix. I used it for my new Fedora 11 installation and it worked great.

[BlueC]

Updated instructions here for Fedora 11:

Installing Broadcom Wireless STA Driver in Fedora 11

I also updated the package to the most recent version of the driver.

[dmyersturnbull]

>Updated instructions here for Fedora 11
Nice guide. Just to add…
If you already have the Fusion’s RPM installed, call rpm -i with the --oldpackage option; that is:
su -c 'rpm --oldpackage -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfr...ble.noarch.rpm'
Update it afterward though!