Broadcom Wireless Network Cards in Ubuntu

Wireless cards manufactured by Broadcom are very common in laptops made by many manufacturers. Unfortunately, for legal reasons Ubuntu cannot include most of the required drivers in the default installation. You will have to download and install the drivers separately. However, Ubuntu makes this easy to do in most situations.

Drivers available in Ubuntu

This is an overview of the different drivers that you could install to begin using your wireless.

The proprietary driver that Broadcom provides, called 'wl,' is a good stable choice if it supports your chipset. Install either bcmwl-kernel-source (instructions below) OR the broadcom-sta (instructions at http://wiki.debian.org/wl) packages.

The open source driver also supports many of the same devices. It is called b43/b43legacy.

Another open-source driver that supports newer Broadcom devices is brcmsmac (a.k.a brcm80211)

rndis_wlan - Open source driver supporting wireless RNDIS chipsets

ndiswrapper - Use the Windows closed source drivers to activate your wifi card

Identifying Your Broadcom Chipset

Cards produced by Broadcom are supported by several different drivers. To find out which specific card you have, use the lspci command.

Open the Terminal and enter the following:

lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

You will then see something like the following:

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

You now know that

• The chip ID is BCM4322

• The PCI ID is [14e4:432b]

Next, go to the wireless support table at the kernel wiki. If your card is listed in green, you should install the b43/b43legacy drivers. If your card is not green, you can look for alternative drivers in the 'Alternatives' column.

Now that you know which driver to install, go to one of the sections below.

Installing the b43/b43legacy drivers.

10.04 (Lucid Lynx)

If you have internet access on the computer on which you are trying to install the drivers (for example, by using an Ethernet cable), it is easy to get your card up and running. There are two ways to install the driver.

1. Go to the application System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers and activate the b43 driver. You need to restart for the changes to take effect.

2. Issue the following commands in a terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

If you are using the LiveCD version of Ubuntu and cannot restart without losing your work, enter these commands instead of rebooting (replacing b43 with b43legacy if needed):

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb
sudo modprobe b43

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

11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) and later

Open a Terminal and update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

If you have a b43 card use the command

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

or, if you need the b43legacy driver, use:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43legacy-installer

or, if you need a LP-PHY version (e.g BCM4312), use:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer

You need to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

Note: Since 11.10 the package linux-firmware-nonfree also contains b43 firmware (changelog). This may contain a different/newer version of the firmware depending on release.

No internet access

If you do not have any other means of Internet access from Ubuntu, then you will have to download the firmware from another computer with Internet access, from an existing OS on another partition, or before you install Ubuntu. You will also need the b43-fwcutter package which is usually included on the install media or can be downloaded from the official online repositories.

1. Install the b43-fwcutter package. This is usually located on the Ubuntu install media under /cdrom/pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/ or you can download the binary '.deb' package by following the links on launchpad.

   Double click on the package to install or in a Terminal issue the following commands:

   cd /cdrom/pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/
   sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter*

2. On a computer with Internet access, download the required firmware file:
   

   b43legacy - http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
   b43 (10.04 Lucid Lynx) - http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
   b43 (12.04 Precise Pangolin) - http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2
   

   For the latest information on what files to download see http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Other_distributions_not_mentioned_above and http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/developers .

3. Copy the downloaded file to your home folder. Open a new Terminal and use b43-fwcutter to extract and install the firmware:
   

   b43legacy

   sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

   b43 (10.04 Lucid Lynx)

   tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
   sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

   b43 (12.04 Precise Pangolin)

   tar xfvj broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2
   sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3/driver/wl_apsta/wl_prebuilt.o

4. Under the desktop menu System > Administration > Hardware/Additional Drivers, the b43 drivers can be activated for use. A computer restart may be required before using the wifi card. For temporary use with the LiveCD and LiveUSB environments, in a terminal issue the following commands (replace b43 with b43legacy where appropriate):

   sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb
   sudo modprobe b43

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

Back to top

Installing wl (STA) drivers

If you have some other kind of Internet access on your computer (e.g. via an ethernet cable) then use the instructions below:

10.04 (Lucid Lynx)

1. Install the 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

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.

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

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

11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) and later

Open a Terminal and install the bcmwl-kernel-source package:

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

Note: If you see the message "Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed" then you are missing the appropriate generic linux-header package(s).

To test the driver (and remove the need for a computer restart) use:

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl brcmfmac brcmsmac bcma
sudo modprobe wl

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

wl/STA with no internet access

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

Note: The bcmwl-kernel-source package depends on the linux-headers packages so you may need to first retrieve the appropriate package(s) from the online repositories. A running LiveCD/LiveUSB environment has these packages (allowing the wireless to work), but an installed system may not. Make sure you have the linux-headers package that matches your current kernel version, plus the appropriate generic header packages so that they are automatically updated on a kernel upgrade. To find out your current kernel use the command:

uname -r

To find what linux-headers packages you have installed use the command:

dpkg -l | grep headers

Systems installed from CDROM can add the install CD as a package source and install bcmwl-kernel-source using apt-get as above. However, if you want to do it manually then the instructions are as follows:

Navigate the install media and install the packages listed below by double clicking OR install the packages consecutively from a Terminal (in the commands below the install media is mounted at /cdrom, but yours maybe different):

1. ../pool/main/d/dkms

   cd /cdrom/pool/main/d/dkms
   sudo dpkg -i dkms*

2. ../pool/main/p/patch

   cd /cdrom/pool/main/p/patch
   sudo dpkg -i patch*

3. ../pool/main/f/fakeroot

   cd /cdrom/pool/main/f/fakeroot
   sudo dpkg -i fakeroot*

4. ../pool/restricted/b/bcmwl

   cd /cdrom/pool/restricted/b/bcmwl
   sudo dpkg -i bcmwl-kernel-source*

Back to top

Upstream 802.11 Linux STA driver

For download and install instructions, please see http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php.

ndiswrapper

If your wifi card/chipset and/or various modes are not supported by the STA driver or the open source kernel drivers, then you will need to go for ndiswrapper - this will allow you to use the Windows closed source drivers to activate your wifi card.

Switching between drivers

A good explanation of using modprobe to test drivers can be found on the Linux Wireless wiki. Ensure that the driver/modules you wish to use are not blacklisted in any of the files in /etc/modprobe.d.

External Links

• Upstream b43 and b43legacy kernel driver http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43.

• Installing Windows drivers with NdisWrapper.

• Linux Wireless.org home page http://www.linuxwireless.org.

• Open source firmware http://www.ing.unibs.it/~openfwwf/.

• Broadcom STA driver page http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php.

• Debian Broadcom 43xx wireless devices wiki http://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx.

• Wireless Troubleshooting Guide https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide.

Back to top

Testimonials

Please include all of the following in your notes:

• Machine Brand and Model

• Wireless Brand and Model (please post the whole line): lspci | grep Broadcom

• Wireless Chipset: lspci -n | grep '14e4:43'

• Ubuntu Version: lsb_release -d

• Kernel/architecture (including 32 vs. 64 bit) : uname -mr

• Any extra boot options you might be using (e.g., noacpi, irqpoll, etc.)
• Whether or not you had to compile NDISWrapper

CategoryHardware CategoryNetworking CategoryWireless