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HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 14/15/16
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  1. #1
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    HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 14/15/16

    Last update: 5/18/2012

    Important Notice

    I will no longer maintain this HOWTO after Fedora 17 is released. That only means that I will not make any further additions and changes for new chipsets and drivers that arrive on the scene. Nor will I be able to know when to remove something here that becomes obsolete. Even so, the techniques described here will continue to be valid for an indeterminate time. One reason is because Fedora 16 will continue to be fully supported for several months after Fedora 17 is released. Another reason is because many people continue to use older versions of Fedora and older wireless hardware for extended periods of time. It is even likely that many, if not all, of the techniques described here will work in Fedora 17 and beyond. But I don't intend to confirm that, so people who use new versions of Fedora and new wireless hardware should proceed with caution or at least with the understanding that nothing here may apply to them.



    Table of Contents

    Introduction
    Step 1: Identify the chipset of the wireless device
    Step 2: Choose the right driver
    Step 3: Install the driver
    ....How to install and use b43 and b43legacy
    ....How to install and use the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (broadcom-wl)
    ....How to install and use b43-openfwwf
    ....How to install and use rndis_wlan
    ....How to install and use ndiswrapper



    Introduction

    Wireless cards using Broadcom chipsets are very common. Until recently, support for these Broadcom wireless cards in Linux was poor, and the only way to use them in Linux was with software that could act as an adapter for Windows drivers in Linux. That worked well in many cases and still does today. But in the last few years, Linux drivers for these Broadcom wireless cards have increased in number and quality. That happened first through reverse engineering efforts which produced the bcm43xx Linux driver several years ago, and later through the belated but nevertheless appreciated cooperation of the Broadcom Corporation which released a partially open source Linux driver for several Broadcom chipsets. So nowadays there are several Linux drivers or driver methods that can be used to make many of the Broadcom wireless chipsets work in Fedora. Broadcom recently released at least one additional fully open source Linux driver that likely will be available for use with Fedora soon.



    Step 1: Identify the chipset of the wireless device

    The driver or driver method to use depends upon the chipset used by the wireless card. Nearly all of the Broadcom wireless cards that are commonly discussed around here use the PCI bus, and their chipsets usually can be positively identified by the following command in a Fedora terminal...
    Code:
    lspci
    Look in the lspci report for a Broadcom wireless network controller and find its chipset number which will be in the format of BCM43xx. If there is no such wireless device revealed in the lspci report, then it may be a USB device listed in the lsusb report. The wireless device may be less obvious in the lsusb report which identifies USB devices by their vendor ID and device ID numbers (venderID:deviceID) and may not have much other information. Nevertheless, the information in the lsusb report is still something that may be helpful in deciding what to do next. If nothing at all is found to identify the wireless card, then it may be disabled by BIOS, a software switch or hotkey, or a physical on-off switch.

    Once the chipset is identified, maybe one of the driver methods described next will work with it in Fedora. The following Broadcom wireless chipsets are known to be capable of working in Fedora with one or more of those driver methods. There may be other Broadcom wireless chipsets that also can work in Fedora, but these are the ones commonly discussed around here and that I know about...
    BCM4301
    BCM4303
    BCM4306
    BCM4309
    BCM4310 USB (but it uses the PCI bus)
    BCM4311
    BCM4312
    BCM4313
    BCM4318
    BCM4320 USB
    BCM4321
    BCM4322
    BCM43224
    BCM43225
    BCM43227
    BCM43228
    BCM4328
    BCM43XG
    IMPORTANT NOTE: There have been reports that the Fedora kernel now includes the brcmsmac driver which supports a few of the chipsets listed above. Go to linuxwireless.org for details about this new driver. If you have a chipset supported by brcmsmac, then try updating to the latest available kernel. You may have nothing more to do than that.



    Step 2: Choose the right driver

    All versions of all chipsets in that list above are known to work in Fedora with at least one of the driver methods described next. Many of them are known to work with more than one of the driver methods described next. But none of the chipsets in that list work with all of the driver methods described next. So choose a driver method below that is known to work with your chipset. The section for each driver method below lists which chipsets are known to work with that driver method. For additional help with deciding which driver method to start out with, study the following algorithm.
    Code:
                                           lspci
                                             |
                                    Any of these listed?
                                            4301
                                            4303
                                            4306
                                            4309
                                            4311
                                            4312
                                            4318
                                           /    \
                                          /      \
                                         /        \
                                        /          \
                                      Yes           No
                                      /              \
                                     /                \
                                    /                  \
                                 lsmod                4310?
                                  /                   /   \
                                 /                   /     \
                                /                  Yes      No
                              b43                  /         \
                            loaded?               /          43XG
                            /    \           ndiswrapper   4313,43224
                           /      No                        4321,43225
                          /        \                         4322,43227
                         /          \                         4328,43228
                       Yes       b43legacy                      /   \
                       /          loaded?                      /     \
                      /           /     \                    Yes      No
                     /          Yes      No                  /         \
                    /           /         \                 /           \
                 4306?         /           \          broadcom-wl      4320?
                4311?      Install        4311?                     (from lsusb
               4318?      version 3        4312?                   or other means)
               /   \      firmware         /   \                        /    \
              /     \                     /     \                      /      \
            Yes      No                 Yes      No                  Yes       No
            /         \                 /         \                  /          \
           /           \               /           \                /            \
    b43-openfwwf     Install     broadcom-wl   ndiswrapper    b43-openfwwf   ndiswrapper
        or          version 4                                       or
      Install       firmware                                    rndis_wlan
     version 4
     firmware
    Next... Step 3: Install the driver
    Last edited by stoat; 14th June 2010 at 02:56 AM.

  2. #2
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    HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 14/15/16

    Step 3: Install the driver

    IMPORTANT NOTE: The steps and examples below are intended for use with NetworkManager managing the wireless connection. For other connection managers or techniques, adapt the information as appropriate for the particular situation. The steps and examples below also require the Fedora system to have an Internet connection via a wired NIC for the steps that involve wget or yum. For a Fedora system with no Internet connection, the relevant files can be downloaded using another computer or operating system and manually installed. For help with that, start a new thread in the Networking forum and mention your running kernel and Broadcom chipset.

    How to install and use b43 and b43legacy

    History and background

    The b43 Linux driver is the current descendant of the now obsolete bcm43xx driver. The bcm43xx driver was the result of reverse engineering of proprietary Broadcom drivers. The process involved manually translating machine code back into C from which a guide to writing drivers for the Broadcom chipsets could be written. The bcm43xx driver module began shipping with Fedora Core 5 kernels in 2006, but it required firmware that had to be extracted from proprietary drivers using a software application for that purpose. That application was named bcm43xx-fwcutter and was also available in the Fedora Core 5 Extras repository. During the life cycle of Fedora 7 in 2007, the bcm43xx driver module was replaced by two new driver modules: b43 and b43legacy. They both still required the installation of firmware. The b43legacy module was for use with some older cards which also have to use an older version of firmware. The b43 and b43legacy driver modules and b43-fwcutter to extract their firmware are still included in Fedora today. They are known to work with the following Broadcom wireless chipsets:
    BCM4301
    BCM4303
    BCM4306
    BCM4309
    BCM4311
    BCM4312
    BCM4318
    IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all wireless modes are supported for all of those chipsets. And some chipsets in that list may exist in more than one version that may each require a different driver or driver method or firmware. The official "home" of the b43 and b43legacy drivers is now Linux Wireless. Go there for additional details about the current status of support and the driver/firmware requirements for Broadcom chipsets. If you do not have success trying b43 for one of those listed chipsets, then it's reasonable to try an alternate driver or driver method known to work with your chipset.

    Firmware installation

    The firmware required by b43 and b43legacy is extracted from proprietary Broadcom drivers. The best results nowadays are obtained by extracting the firmware from source object files of Broadcom drivers available from a legal distribution point such as OpenWrt.org. The firmware is copyrighted and cannot be redistributed. The b43 module requires so-called version 4 firmware which can be extracted from a broadcom-wl tarball from OpenWrt, and probably any of the version 4 broadcom-wl tarballs can used as a firmware source for the b43 driver in the latest Fedoras. But if the wireless card must use the b43legacy driver, then it must use older version 3 firmware extracted from an older driver file. The version 3 firmware is maintained at OpenWrt not as a broadcom driver tarball but as a single object file named wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o. In both cases, as explained next, the firmware is extracted from the driver file with b43-fwcutter which is a software package available from the Fedora repository.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: The following steps are ones often used successfully around here. If they don't work for a particular Broadcom wireless card, then go to linuxwireless.org for more complex explanations and specialized instructions for the various chipsets and versions. These steps assume that the Fedora system has a wired NIC connection to the Internet for the download steps. If the Fedora system does not have an Internet connection, then all of the packages and files mentioned can be downloaded using another computer or operating system and transferred to the Fedora filesystem. Modify the steps accordingly for that scenario.
    1. Install b43-fwcutter. This is the software package that does the extraction of the firmware from the proprietary driver.
      Code:
      su
      yum install b43-fwcutter
    2. Determine which native driver is being used by the wireless card (b43 or b43legacy). The kernel is generally good about detecting a Broadcom wireless card and loading the correct driver module for it. The following terminal command will list the loaded kernel modules in alphabetical order. Look for b43 or b43legacy.
      Code:
      lsmod | sort
    3. Do this step only if you need to install version 4 firmware for the b43 driver module. Copy and execute the following command lines one after the other in a Fedora terminal.
      Code:
      wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
      tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
      cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver	
      su
      b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o
    4. Do this step only if you need to install version 3 firmware for the b43legacy module.
      Code:
      wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
      su
      b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
    5. Now reboot or restart NetworkManager and look in the NetworkManager panel icon for available networks (left-click the icon).

    Some things to try if it doesn't work
    1. Check the firmware files. There should be about three dozen .fw files in /lib/firmware/b43 (or /lib/firmware/b43legacy). If they're not there, then review the steps and re-install the firmware.
      Code:
      ls /lib/firmware/b43
    2. Check the loaded kernel modules again. The b43 or b43legacy module should be loaded, and potentially conflicting modules such as wl or ndiswrapper should not be loaded.
      Code:
      lsmod | sort
    3. If a conflicting module is being loaded from a previous driver effort, then either undo the steps from that previous effort, or blacklist the unwanted module. Example...
      Code:
      su
      echo "blacklist ndiswrapper" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
    Next... How to install and use the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (broadcom-wl)
    Last edited by stoat; 14th June 2010 at 02:47 AM.

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

    How to install and use the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (broadcom-wl)

    History and background

    This is the partially open source Linux wireless driver released by Broadcom in 2008. It is commonly referred to as broadcom-wl. Once loaded, the kernel module is listed in the lsmod report as "wl". It is available as source code from the Broadcom website. But a more popular pre-compiled binary version of the same driver is available from the RPM Fusion repositories in a kmod version and an akmod version that can be installed in Fedora using the YUM package manager as described in detail below. This driver is "advertised" to work with these Broadcom chipsets:
    BCM4311
    BCM4312
    BCM4313
    BCM4321
    BCM4322
    BCM43224
    BCM43225
    BCM43227
    BCM43228
    However, it also has been discovered by members here and documented in threads here to work with the following additional chipsets:IMPORTANT NOTE: There have been reports that the Fedora kernel now includes the brcmsmac driver which supports some of the chipsets listed in this section. Go to linuxwireless.org for details about this new driver. If you have a chipset supported by brcmsmac, then try updating to the latest available kernel. You may have nothing more to do than that.

    Installation of the RPM Fusion broadcom-wl driver

    The broadcom-wl driver maintained by RPM Fusion is available in a kmod version which is actually a trio of packages: the broadcom-wl package, a kmod-wl metapackage, and a kernel specific kmod-wl package. These three packages are dependent upon each other, and installing any one of them generally installs the others as dependencies. The two kmod-wl packages will be updated every time the Fedora kernel is updated if the RPM Fusion repos are enabled. The broadcom-wl package is updated only when new versions of it become available. The broadcom-wl driver is also available in an akmod version which automatically creates updated kmod-wl packages when the Fedora kernel is updated. It is a matter of personal preference whether to install the kmod version or the akmod version. The active RPM Fusion repos follow the life cycle of Fedora versions. That means versions of the broadcom-wl driver for archived versions of Fedora will also be archived at RPM Fusion.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: The following steps are for installing the RPM Fusion binary version of this driver because of its popularity and simplicity. These steps assume that the Fedora system has a wired NIC connection to the Internet for the download steps. If the Fedora system does not have an Internet connection, then all of the packages and files mentioned can be downloaded using another computer or operating system and transferred to the Fedora filesystem. For help with that, start a new thread in the Networking forum and mention your running kernel and Broadcom chipset.
    1. Install the RPM Fusion repositories.
    2. Determine the architecture of the running kernel.
      Code:
      uname -r
    3. Do this step only if you need to install the kmod version of the driver for the i686 or x86_64 kernels.
      Code:
      su
      yum install kmod-wl
    4. Do this step only if you need to install the kmod version of the driver for the PAE kernel.
      Code:
      su
      yum install kmod-wl-PAE
    5. Do this step only if you want to install the akmod version of the driver for any kernel.
      Code:
      su
      yum install akmod-wl
    6. Now reboot or restart NetworkManager and look in the NetworkManager panel icon for available networks (left-click the icon).

    Some things to try if it doesn't work
    1. Check the installed packages against the running kernel. It should all make sense by the version numbers. If it doesn't, then fix the installed packages situation. And make sure the correct kernel is running for the installed kmod package versions (a very common mistake).
      Code:
      uname -r
      rpm -qa | grep -e kernel -e broadcom-wl -e kmod-wl | sort
    2. Check the loaded kernel modules. The wl module should be loaded, and potentially conflicting modules such as b43, b43legacy, and ssb should not be loaded.
      Code:
      lsmod | sort
    3. If wl is not loaded, then try manually loading it.
      Code:
      su
      modprobe wl
      service NetworkManager restart
    4. If manually loading the module worked, then add that modprobe command to /etc/rc.local.
      Code:
      su
      echo "modprobe wl" >> /etc/rc.local
    5. If a conflicting module is being loaded, then blacklist the unwanted module. Examples...
      Code:
      su
      echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      IMPORTANT NOTE: See jgrunhut's post #26 below for another new module that may need to be blacklisted.

      IMPORTANT NOTE: See bbfuller's post #9 in another thread for yet another module that may need to be blacklisted.

      IMPORTANT NOTE: Some wired ethernet cards use the b44 kernel module which requires the ssb kernel module. It's a potential complication to blacklisting ssb in this situation. If blacklisting ssb works, then see Gödel's thread on this issue for some ways to deal with b44.



    How to install and use b43-openfwwf

    History and background

    OpenFWWF (Open FirmWare for WiFi networks) is not a Broadcom Linux driver itself. It is a new project that provides an open source firmware for Broadcom chipsets using the b43 kernel module. It became included with Fedora starting with Fedora 12 as a package named b43-openfwwf. It also became available for Fedora 10 and 11 in their updates repos. It can be thought of as built-in firmware for the b43 module that works with a few of the Broadcom chipsets which currently are as follows:
    BCM4306
    BCM4311
    BCM4318
    BCM4320
    IMPORTANT NOTE: There is at least anecdotal evidence that this b43-openfwwf firmware also works with a version of the BCM4309 chipset. Some versions of that chipset use the b43 driver and some use the b43legacy driver. The version that uses b43 may be able to use the b43-openfwwf firmware. To find out which driver is being used by a BCM4309 chipset, check the lsmod report for the driver module that was auto-loaded. If the b43 module is in the lsmod report when a BCM4309 chipset is present, then try using the b43-openfwwf firmware with it.

    Installation and use of b43-openfwwf

    There are no special steps needed to use this driver with a supported device. If a supported wireless card is present, then the firmware package was probably installed. That can be confirmed this way...
    Code:
    rpm -q b43-openfwwf
    If the package is not installed, then it can be installed this way...
    Code:
    su
    yum install b43-openfwwf
    Go the the OpenFWWF website for details about the status this project and additional configuration details.



    How to install and use rndis_wlan

    The rndis_wlan driver was added to the stock kernel as of 2.6.25 and is still included with Fedora kernels today. The Broadcom 4320 USB WLAN chipset is currently the only wireless RNDIS chip known, and it has been documented here to work with this driver module. Although rndis_wlan has a vendor/device-id list, the driver can also autodetect new wireless RNDIS devices in the future. There are no special steps needed to use this driver with a supported device. Go to Linux Wireless for details about the current status of this driver.

    Next... How to install and use ndiswrapper
    Last edited by stoat; 29th May 2010 at 01:02 PM.

  4. #4
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    HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 14/15/16

    How to install and use ndiswrapper

    History and background

    Ndiswrapper was initially released in 2003 and is software that acts as a sort of "adapter" to make a Windows driver work in Linux. After it is installed, ndiswrapper commands are then used to install the Windows driver and to configure the system to load and use the ndiswrapper module. Windows XP drivers are preferred, but some people still use drivers for Windows 2000 and even Windows 98. Wireless drivers for Vista and later Windows versions are known not to work well with ndiswrapper and should be avoided. And for 64-bit Fedora, use a 64-bit Windows driver with ndiswrapper. Not all chipsets and Windows drivers work with ndiswrapper. If the appropriate packages are installed for compiling, then ndiswrapper can be compiled from the source code. The source code can be downloaded from Sourceforge.net. But a popular pre-compiled binary version of ndiswrapper also is available from the RPM Fusion repositories in a kmod version and an akmod version that can be installed in Fedora using the YUM package manager as described in detail below. The ndiswrapper documentation and database of supported chipsets are still available at the Sourceforge wiki. According to the ndiswrapper database, most of the chipsets described here so far are known to work with ndiswrapper. Here they are...
    BCM4301
    BCM4303
    BCM4306
    BCM4309
    BCM4310 USB
    BCM4311
    BCM4312
    BCM4318
    BCM4320 USB
    BCM4321
    BCM4328
    BCM43XG
    And one of those in that list will only work with ndiswrapper because there is no Linux driver for it (yet)...
    BCM4310 USB
    So with more chipsets working with Linux drivers, ndiswrapper has gradually assumed its new role as "the last resort". Nevertheless, some people still prefer ndiswrapper even when a Linux driver is available for their chipset.

    Installation of the RPM Fusion version of ndiswrapper

    The ndiswrapper maintained by RPM Fusion is available in a kmod version which is actually a trio of packages: the ndiswrapper package, a kmod-ndiswrapper metapackage, and a kernel specific kmod-ndiswrapper package. These three packages are dependent upon each other, and installing any one of them generally installs the others as dependencies. The two kmod-ndiswrapper packages will be updated every time the Fedora kernel is updated if the RPM Fusion repos are enabled. The ndiswrapper package is updated only when new versions of it become available. Ndiswrapper is also available in an akmod version which automatically creates updated kmod-ndiswrapper packages when the Fedora kernel is updated. It is a matter of personal preference whether to install the kmod version or the akmod version. The active RPM Fusion repos follow the life cycle of Fedora versions. That means versions of the ndiswrapper for archived versions of Fedora will also be archived at RPM Fusion.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: The following steps are for installing the RPM Fusion binary version of ndiswrapper because of its popularity and simplicity. These steps assume that the Fedora system has a wired NIC connection to the Internet for the download steps. If the Fedora system does not have an Internet connection, then all of the packages and files mentioned can be downloaded using another computer or operating system and transferred to the Fedora filesystem. For help with that, start a new thread in the Networking forum and mention your running kernel and Broadcom chipset.
    1. Install the RPM Fusion repositories.
    2. Update the system and reboot. This step potentially may take a long time and can be considered optional. But I recommend it if time and bandwidth allow it. A system update eventually needs to be done anyway, and it may avoid some kmod-ndiswrapper dependency issues if the system is up-to-date before attempting to install ndiswrapper.
      Code:
      su
      yum update
      reboot
    3. Determine the architecture of the running kernel.
      Code:
      uname -r
    4. Do this step only if you need to install the kmod version of ndiswrapper for the i686 or x86_64 kernels.
      Code:
      su
      yum install kmod-ndiswrapper
    5. Do this step only if you need to install the kmod version of ndiswrapper for the PAE kernel.
      Code:
      su
      yum install kmod-ndiswrapper-PAE
    6. Do this step only if you want to install the akmod version of ndiswrapper for any kernel.
      Code:
      su
      yum install akmod-ndiswrapper

    Acquire and prepare the Windows driver
    1. Places to find the Windows driver files for the wireless card include the CD that came with the wireless card, the Internet, or Windows system folders.
    2. The files needed are the .sys and .inf files for the Windows driver.
    3. Put those two files together in one place, open a terminal, and change directories (cd) to that directory.
    Install the Windows driver
    Code:
    su
    ndiswrapper -i [driver INF filename here]
    ndiswrapper -mi
    IMPORTANT NOTE: That last ndiswrapper command creates the file /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. For Fedora 11 and later, that file should have a .conf ending. Give it one now and allow it to replace the previous file.
    Code:
    su
    mv /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
    Now reboot and look in the NetworkManager panel icon for available networks (left-click the icon).

    Some things to try if it doesn't work.
    1. Check the loaded kernel modules. The ndiswrapper module should be loaded, and potentially conflicting modules such as b43 or b43legacy should not be loaded...
      Code:
      lsmod | sort
    2. If ndiswrapper is not being loaded, then try manually loading it.
      Code:
      su
      modprobe ndiswrapper
      lsmod | sort
    3. If manually loading the module worked, then try the -ma option and reboot...
      Code:
      su
      ndiswrapper -ma
      IMPORTANT NOTE: That last ndiswrapper command creates the file /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper. For Fedora 11 and later, that file should have a .conf ending. Give it one now and allow it to replace the previous file.
      Code:
      su
      mv /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
    4. If a conflicting module is being loaded, then blacklist the unwanted module and reboot. Example...
      Code:
      su
      echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      reboot
    5. Confirm that the Windows driver was installed...
      Code:
      ndiswrapper -l


    The End. Good Luck.
    Last edited by stoat; 14th June 2010 at 03:09 AM.

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    Post Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    First of all, thanks for creating this guide. I'm have a Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-card, which I discovered has a BCM4312 chip. I didn't even know there was another option, besides ndiswrapper, until I saw this guide. This guide also gave me the last step I needed to make ndiswrapper work (which was blacklisting the ssp module), as well as pointing out that I should be using an XP driver instead of a Vista one. Both are up for download on Dell's website, fortunately.

    Second, I wanted to add something for any fellow ndiswrapper users. I downloaded the current (non-SVN) version of ndiswrapper (v. 1.56), and I discovered that it was incompatible with my kernel (2.6.35.6-48.fc14) (error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type). This problem was fixed by downloading a patch by beevvy at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func...82&atid=604452 (which can also be accessed by going to the ndiswrapper wiki, hosted by Sourceforge, scrolling down to "Support," and clicking "Patches"). I also needed gcc compiler packages to be installed. Finally, once it finally compiled, my ndiswrapper install put the module in the wrong place, for some reason, so modprobe couldn't find ndiswrapper. I had to copy "ndiswrapper.ko" from /lib/modules/misc/ to /lib/modules/"current version here"/kernel/drivers/ndiswrapper/

    I hope those of you who used RPMfusion to install ndiswrapper didn't have these problems, but for anyone who has, that's how I got wireless networking to function in Fedora 14.
    Last edited by statesman88; 30th November 2010 at 07:02 PM. Reason: grammar

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    An excellent, thorough, well-written and easily understood tutorial! Thank-you! I updated my Fedora system, and am using another boot manager, forgot to upgrade-grub, and had a kernel and wl mismatch, which was superbly pointed out in this documentation! ("A very common mistake" indeed!)

    --phubai

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    An excellent tutorial: thorough, clear, competent.

    A model for others to follow. I should have said that 7 months ago when I made my Broadcam wireless card work under Fedora 13 using the information contained in this tutorial.

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    IMPORTANT NOTE: Some wired ethernet cards use the b44 kernel module which requires the ssb kernel module. It's a potential complication to blacklisting ssb in this situation. People deal with it in various ways.
    This is exactly the situation with my Dell Vostro 1500 laptop. Could you point me to some solution for this situation?
    Using wireless with the broadcom-wl driver was spotty until F13. Now with F14 it simply doesn't work!
    Funny thing is that before the linux driver I'd have access to the wireless using the windows XP driver with ndiswrapper and it ALWAYS worked (even better than in windows...).
    Thank you.

    ------======++++++======------

    Administrator's Note: rgaelzer's question and issue has been resolved here...Go there to follow up on this post or comment.
    Rudi Gaelzer
    Registered Linux user # 153741

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    I use fedora 14 and Dell laptop vostro 3300. There is also annoying wireless card problems when I installed fedora 14 for the first time. At last I download the linux driver from the Broadcom company and compile and install by hand. It works well, but it still present a minor uncomfort. I have to re-install it everytime I have updated my kernal. It is not hard for me since the installation process is just about 3 steps. I write this to say that if I have notices your article earlier, there would be no such complications in my Fedoar 14 on laptop. You work is excellent!

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    Just registered this forum to say:
    Excellent tutorial/guide. Just the way it is written and organized, I am confident that my wireless device (seems to be listed here) is going to work .

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    I also just registered to this forum just to thank you, stoat, for this very helpful and comprehensive guide.
    Even though I am not very familiar with fedora and command line usage in general, I was able to get my BCM4313 finally working. There was a little extra frustration to the whole thing because the rpm fusion repositories were down yesterday, but having your guide available was great.
    Thank you so much for investing your time and effort so that someone like me can migrate to fedora and solve this problem with the least possible frustration.

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    May I suggest adding a HARDWARE DRIVERS installer program for proprietary drivers, as Ubuntu has it. It made my BCM4312 work with the Ubuntu installation. But since installing Fedora 14 in place of Ubuntu, this is an issue I'd like to be resolved, as I'm sure for many other users of Fedora, since the above mentioned open-source drivers haven't been able to get the BCM4312 working. And for no other reason that I don't know how to install files from a tar.gz download from Broadcom's web site. I haven't been able to find directions.

    Thanks.
    Last edited by DAB4970; 29th March 2011 at 07:45 PM.

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    Used the b43 guide and it worked perfectly on my Lenovo S12 with BCM4312. I just had to install wget, download the version 4 firmware, extract it, service NetworkManager restart via command prompt, configure my connnection, and then enable it by right clicking network manager icon (took me a few minutes to figure that last part out...doh!). This is all while running from the LiveCD. Now I just need to copy the extracted firmware to a USB drive and write a quick shell script to copy it into place for the next time I want to load the liveCD. Then it will only take seconds to get wireless working.

    Thanks for an easy to follow guide!


    Updated for Fedora 16 -The command to restart NetworkManager differs due to systemd having largely replaced sysvinit.
    systemctl restart NetworkManager.service
    Also, had to remove and blacklist conflicting acer-wmi kernel module on my Lenovo S12
    su
    rmmod acer-wmi
    echo "blacklist acer_wmi" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
    Update: I have experienced some problems with the b43 driver in Fedora 16, previous releases of Fedora, and in Linux Mint 11. Compared to the wl driver, b43 is quite slow for this chipset. The wireless activity does not work either. So I moved to the wl driver from rpmfusion. This driver is fast and the wireless activity light works perfectly.
    Last edited by mkruger; 15th April 2012 at 02:23 AM.

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    Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    Thanks a lot for posting such a nice post. It only took 10 min max to resolve the issue, which I have been facing for last 2 days.

    Cheers,
    Niraj

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    Thumbs up Re: HOWTO Use Broadcom Wireless Cards in Fedora 12/13/14

    Hi everyone.

    First of all thanks for this post!, and well it took like a while to get the fix, because
    it was a fresh install of F14 64 bits on a Dell N4010 where I was trying to get the broadcom 4313 get working and be able to lookup for wireless.

    I followed the steps by adding the RPM fusion repos and then do a "yum install broadcom-wl", reload the networkmanager and that's it. Thanks again

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