Support of these chipsets is possible using a driver (wl) made available by the vendor, which includes a binary-only component targeted for the x86 or x86-64 architecture. All supported devices are listed at the end of this page. This is a "non-free" driver.
The BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 chipsets are alternatively supported by the brcm80211 driver.
And as of 9 Sept 2010 Broadcom announced the
NOTE: (2011/2/23) The following has been observed specifically for the BCM4313 chipset (Device ID 14E4:4727) but may apply to other chipsets which were updated from providing 802.11b/g to 802.11b/g/n support. The b/g version of BCM 4313 has been supported since version 5.60.48.36 of the driver, currently available in the Debian testing non-free repositories. Support for the b/g/n revision of BCM 4313 requires use of driver version 5.100.82.38 or newer, which is not currently available in the repositories. You will need to use installation method 3, see below.initial release of a fully-open Linux driver for it's latest generation of 11n chipsets. The driver, while still a work in progress... supports multiple current chips (BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225) as well as providing a framework for supporting additional chips in the future.
NOTE 2: (2011/3/6) Version 5.100.82.38-1 of Broadcom-STA is now available in the LMDE repositories. Installation method 1 should work for newer wifi cards.
INSTALLATION
METHOD 1
1. The Mint developers of LMDE have enabled the "non-free" repositories by default. To confirm this navigate to
- Menu > Administration > Software Sources.
Select the <Third-Party Software> tab
Debian Testing Officially supported DFSG-compatible Software with Non-free Dependencies Non-DFSG-compatible- Software should be present and selected,select it if not currently enabled
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gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
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# Debian Testing (currently Wheezy)
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
updated to reflect testing instead of squeeze
2. The remainder of the installation process will be performed as the root user in a terminal. Open a terminal, type su, press <enter>, type your password (there will be no response from the blinking cursor), press <enter>. The terminal prompt will change from something like username@computer-name ~ $ to computer-name username # Note: the change from $ to #. Also, to avoid confusion between a one (1) and lowercase L (l) commands can be copied from the tutorial and pasted into the terminal. The key combination to paste into the terminal is <Shift><Ctrl><v>
3. Update the list of available packages. Install the module-assistant and wireless-tools packages:
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apt-get update
apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools
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m-a a-i broadcom-sta
5. Blacklist the brcm80211 module, to prevent it conflicting for support of BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 devices:
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echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf
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update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)
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modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211
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modprobe wl
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iwconfig
11. Exit the root terminal:
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exit
A script to automate the above process was written and posted HERE in the Linux Mint Forum by Gramps50
METHOD 3
To install from source see the Broadcom Linux STA page. See the README.txt file first.
KNOWN PROBLEMS
- + The Sonics Silicon Backplane driver (ssb) conflicts with the wl driver (545388, broadcom-sta-common/README.Debian).
- * b44, b43, b43legacy and ssb are blacklisted by default as of broadcom-sta 5.10.91.9.3-3.
* This prevents use of any Ethernet device supported by b44.
+ Monitor mode is not supported.
+ Unable to transfer data over ad-hoc network created by NetworkManager (iwconfig OK) #81392
+ STA unable to associate to AP when PEAPv1-MSCHAPv2 authentication is used #81452
+ 20% lower throughput on channels 149, 153, 157, and 161 #72238 - * b44, b43, b43legacy and ssb are blacklisted by default as of broadcom-sta 5.10.91.9.3-3.
SUPPORTED DEVICES
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo wl as of driver version 5.60.48.36:
- PCI: 14E4:4311 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
PCI: 14E4:4312 Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g
PCI: 14E4:4313 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a
PCI: 14E4:4315 Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
PCI: 14E4:4328 Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:4329 Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:432A Broadcom Corporation BCM4321
PCI: 14E4:432B Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
PCI: 14E4:432C Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:432D Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:4353 Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:4357 Broadcom Corporation BCM43225 802.11b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:4727 Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g LP-PHY supported since driver ver 5.60.48.36,
PCI: 14E4:4727 Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller now supported as of 1/11/2011,- use driver version 5.100.82.38 or newer
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lspci -n | grep 14e4
TROUBLE SHOOTING
1. If the wl driver loads but doesn't seem to do anything: the ssb module may be the cause. Sometimes blacklisting ssb may not be enough to prevent it from loading and it loads anyway. (This is mostly seen on Ubuntu/Debian systems). From HERE
Check to see if ssb, wl or b43 is loaded:
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lsmod | grep "b43\|ssb\|wl"
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sudo rmmod b43
sudo rmmod ssb
sudo rmmod wl
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sudo cp /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r` /path/to/somewheresafe
sudo update-initramfs -u
2. The driver fails to load at boot.
Perform this command in a terminal
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sudo echo wl >> /etc/modules
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gksudo /etc/modprobe.d/00local
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install wl /bin/true
Note that "If the file /etc/modprobe.conf exists, all contents of /etc/modprobe.d/ are ignored by default."
REFERENCES
Debian wiki on broadcom-sta installation and enabling the wl driver
Installation Script by Gramps50 to automate installing and enabling the wl driver from the Linux Mint Forums
How To use a WiFI interface from the Debian Wiki
Broadcom STA driver - download page with README.txt
Bugs in source package broadcom-sta Debian Bug Reports
How To Identify PCI like Devices from the Debian Wiki
SEE ALSO
bcm43xx - Broadcom 43xx wireless devices
brcm80211 - Broadcom 4313, 43224, 43225 devices
NDISwrapper - Installing NDISwrapper on Debian systems