HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 14/15/16

[shakerlxxv]

stoat,
Thank you for the excellent instructions. Well done!

I used them for a BCM4313 on an Asus Eee PC 1015PN, to use the broadcom-wl driver.

While I did need to manually load the wl module as part of the initial install ( I had only restarted the NetworkManager service ). It was NOT necessary to add a modprobe call into /etc/rc.local. It is working fine without this step after reboots.

[techdir]

Thank you for your guide. At this point, my issue is that I have set a 64 bit key and the option in the wireless NetworkManager is for 40 or 128. Rather than redoing my home network, I would like to know if there is a way to get NetworkManager Applet to offer a 64 bit option.

[nullrulez]

Thank for your guide again! This guide works out of box for Fedora 15 Beta!

[JEO]

Thank you for your guide. At this point, my issue is that I have set a 64 bit key and the option in the wireless NetworkManager is for 40 or 128. Rather than redoing my home network, I would like to know if there is a way to get NetworkManager Applet to offer a 64 bit option.

The 40 bit key is also known as a 64 bit key when dealing with WEP the last 24 bits are not user configurable. I don't know why they specified the other key as 128 bits, usually it would be called a 104 bit key (user configurable bits).

[necrophrenic]

I too would like to thank you for conjuring up this wonderful guide. I had a hopeless headache of trying to fix my wireless despite research until I came across this guide. It has helped me to utilize my Latittude E6500's BCM433 Broadcom wireless both initially, and after breaking it with upgrades. Thank you so much! Oh as a note, this fixed my issue with my wireless in Fedora 15.

[ratdude747]

report on the 4309 Using b43 (not legacy) and b43-openfwwf. works OOTB (wish my intel i8xx graphics were the same story). i might not that the driver crashes (refuses to connect to a WPA2 netork) under heavy network load... i might be doing too much and i lose my internet connection and 2 min later it disconnects, tries to reconnect, but giving it the correct password doesn't maker it connect... it acts as if the right password is wrong. works fine after a reboot (not log out and in) untilt he next overload.

FYI i am using f15 gnome.

[eCubeH]

Worked like a charm!

Dell Wireless (Dell Inspiron 1440, Broadcom BCM4312)
Fedora 15 / GNOME 3

Thanks!

[CrazyCat]

I'm frustrated on HP 625 (BCM4313) at Fedora 15.
The broadcom-wl driver maintained by RPM Fusion is old (5.60.48.36) and didn't work. Recent version (5.100.82.38) can be downloaded here but I don't know how to compile.
Will it ever get updated at RMP Fusion?

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 5.100.82.38
---------------------------------
+ Support for bcm43227 and bcm43228
+ Fix for issue where iwconfig was sometime reporting rate incorrectly
+ Supports rfkill in kernels 2.6.31 to 2.6.36
+ Supports scan complete event (SIOCGIWSCAN)
+ Adds EAGAIN (busy signal) to query of scan results

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 5.100.57.15
---------------------------------
+ Following fixes (issues introduced in 5.100.57.13)
Issue #87477 - 4313: DUT is not able to associate in WPA2-PSK TKIP/AES
Issue #87533 - NetworkManager: 4313: Unable to associate to APs with WPA2-PSK

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 5.100.57.13
---------------------------------
+ 4313 PHY fixes to improve throughput stability at different ranges
+ Fix for interop issues with different APs
+ Fix for hangs seen during Fn-F2 sequence
- Support for rfkill in kernels 2.6.31 to 2.6.36

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 5.60.246.6
--------------------------------
+ Supports rfkill in kernels 2.6.31 to 2.6.36
+ Fix for compile error with multicast list in kernel 2.6.34
+ Fix for #76743 - Ubuntu9.04: Network manager displays n/w's with radio disabled

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 5.60.246.2
--------------------------------
+ Supports up to linux kernel 2.6.36 (from 2.6.32)
+ Fix for #86668: [Canonical] Bug #611575/617369: System will hang if
you use the F2 hot key to enable/disable wireless quickly while
wireless is still in the process of re-association with AP

[StephenH]

I'm also interested in an updated broadcom-wl. I have initially had success with my new AO722, but I have spent much of the past two days fighting with it and reinstalling F15 since when the wireless tries to connect, it freezes solid. I currently have wireless disabled and really need a workable solution.

Edit, 28 July:

I have wireless working, but I ended up disabling the wired connection. It seems to be stable so far. In any case, it wasted time that I really should have been using to complete course requirements for a class.

[christian_l]

Looks like there had been a few initial problems in getting 5.100.82.38 to work with F15: https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678, https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1624, http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linu...ion.devel/9396. I wonder if at some point they just forgot?

In the meantime, I do have an updated broadcom-wl working after installing the packages from here: http://packages.atrpms.net/dist/f15/broadcom-wl/ (remove the old broadcom-wl, akmod-wl and kmod-wl packages). Not optimal, especially the fact that there is no akmod package. And I don't want to install the atrpms repo in addition to rpmfusion's, since that has caused me problems in the past...

Then I've also just found out that Russian Fedora has packages for 5.100.82.38, including an akmod-wl (http://ftp.russianfedora.ru/koji/buildinfo?buildID=360, http://ftp.russianfedora.ru/koji/buildinfo?buildID=358), but it doesn't let me download the packages (do they have a repo somewhere?).

Anyway, I hope rpmfusion will eventually release an update.

[Edit:] I found the akmod-wl and broadcom-wl packages from the Russian Fedora here: ftp://ftp.san.ru/unix/linux/fedora/r...tes/15/x86_64/. Works nicely with my card (BCM4321). Especially when resuming after suspend/hibernate the network is up much faster than with 5.60.

[jgrunhut]

I just registered to post some additional information. This guide is great but I wasn't able to get my wireless working in Fedora 15 for the life of me. No problem in previous version of Fedora. I found a reference on Broadcom's website that said in newer kernels, you should also blacklist bcma. Once I did this and reload the necessary kernel mods everything was functional.

Cheers,
Jay

[phil75]

Hi,

this guide worked fine for kernel version 2.6.39 and less.
However the newest update to kernel version 2.6.40 broke the broadcom wireless (no wlan showed up in network manager).
Blacklisting bcma solved the issue for me, too.

Cheers

[soheilc]

tanx a lot man
tanxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Dutchy]

Worked great for a netbook I own and with the latest kernel (3.0)
After it was installed I could also finally continue the first boot process (sending device info).

[linux2001]

Thanks for this topic.
Great job.