Broadcom wireless - ArchWiki

# Broadcom wireless

## Introduction

Broadcom has been notorious in its support for its Wi-Fi cards on GNU/Linux. Until recently, most Broadcom chips were either entirely unsupported or required the user to tinker with firmware. A limited set of wireless chips were supported by various reverse-engineered drivers (`brcm4xxx`, `b43`, etc.). The reverse-engineered b43 drivers have been in the kernel since 2.6.24.

In August 2008, Broadcom released the 802.11 Linux STA driver officially supporting Broadcom wireless hardware on GNU/Linux. These are restrictively licensed drivers, but Broadcom promised to work towards a more open approach in the future. Further, they do not work with hidden ESSIDs.

In September 2010, Broadcom finally released fully open source drivers for its hardware. This driver, brcm80211, has been included into the kernel since 2.6.37. With the release of 2.6.39, these drivers have been renamed to `brcmsmac` and `brcmfmac`.

At the time of writing, there are three choices for users with Broadcom Wi-Fi chipsets:

Driver | Description
--- | ---
brcmsmac/brcmfmac | Open-source kernel driver
b43 | Reverse-engineered kernel driver
broadcom-wl | Proprietary Broadcom STA driver

## Determine which driver you need/can use

First, determine your card's PCI-ID. Type the following (case-sensitive) command into a console:

    $ lspci -vnn | grep 14e4:

Then check your card against this list of supported b43 devices and this list of supported brcm80211 devices.

## Getting the driver

### brcmsmac/brcmfmac

The `brcm80211` drivers are included in the kernel. They are named `brcmsmac` for PCI cards and `brcmfmac` for SDIO devices.

These drivers should be automatically loaded during start-up and no further action should be required of the user. If the driver does not load automatically, simply load it manually.

Note: Since linux>=3.3.1, the `brcmsmac` driver depends on the `bcma` module; therefore, make sure the `bcma` module is not blacklisted.
Note: wireless.kernel.org states that brcm80211 does not support older PCI/PCI-E chips with SSB backplane.

### b43/b43legacy

The drivers are included in the kernel since 2.6.24.

#### Loading the b43/b43legacy kernel module

Verify which module you need by looking up your device here. You can also check by computer model here. Blacklist the other module (either `b43` or `b43legacy`) to prevent possible problems/confusion. For instructions, see Kernel_modules#Blacklisting.

This article or section needs expansion.

Reason:

- The official repository package contains b43-fwcutter which is supported but not mentioned below yet.
  - How does it relate to the external scripts and/or the AUR packages listed?
  - Can it be used to replace the manual download explained below?
- Discussion: b43 firmware & fwcutter (Discuss)

Install the appropriate b43-firmware or b43-firmware-legacy package from the AUR.

If you have a low-power version of a b43-supported device, you will need to install special firmware. A quick way to check whether you have a low-power chip is by running `lspci | grep Broadcom | grep LP-PHY`. You can install it by downloading the appropriate package and using `b43-fwcutter` as outlined below, or by using this installation script.

To install the LP-PHY firmware, perform the following:

    curl -LO http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4.tar.bz2
    tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4.tar.bz2
    cd broadcom-wl-4.178.10.4/linux
    b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o

After installing the firwmare, you can now configure your device.

Note: If the b43 module appears to be loaded and functional but the device is inaccessible, you may need to blacklist the `bcma` module. See Section 4.1.

### broadcom-wl

Warning: Even though this driver has matured a lot throughout the years and works quite well now, its usage is recommended only when neither of the two open-source drivers support your device. Please refer to project b43's page for list of supported devices.

For users of the `broadcom-wl` driver, there are packages available in the AUR named broadcom-wl, or, for those who prefer to use DKMS, broadcom-wl-dkms.

#### Loading the wl kernel module

The `wl` module may need to be manually loaded if there are other usable modules present. Before loading the `wl` module, remove the `b43` or other module that may have been automatically loaded instead:

    # rmmod b43

Also unload `ssb`, if loaded:

    # rmmod ssb

Note: Failure to unload `ssb` may result in the wireless interface not being created.

Load the `wl` module

    # modprobe wl

The `wl` module should automatically load `lib80211` or `lib80211_crypt_tkip`. Check with `lsmod` to see if this is the case. If not, you may need to add one of those two modules as well.

    # modprobe lib80211

or

    # modprobe lib80211_crypt_tkip

If you installed the driver directly from Broadcom, you may also need to update the dependencies:

    # depmod -a

To make the module load at boot, refer to Kernel modules.

You can also blacklist other modules (to prevent them from interfering) in `/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf`. To blacklist a module, refer to Kernel modules#Blacklisting.

Note: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] does not work with blacklisting `b43` and `ssb`.

## Troubleshooting

### Wi-Fi card does not seem to even exist

This article or section needs expansion.

Reason: no solution provided (Discuss)

Some users with newer cards like the Broadcom BCM43241 will experience an issue where lspci or lsusb will not show any trace of the card. A solution to this will be posted when found.

### Wi-Fi card does not work or show up after kernel upgrade (brcmsmac)

This is caused by the kernel using the `bcma` module instead of the `brcmsmac` module. The solution is to blacklist the `bcma` module. For instructions, see Kernel_modules#Blacklisting.

Note: This affects only Linux kernels 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. Since kernel 3.3, the `brcmsmac` module actually uses `bcma`, so `bcma` needs to be unblacklisted or the Wi-Fi interface will not appear.

### Wi-Fi card does not work/show up (broadcom-wl)

Check if you are loading the correct modules. You may need to blacklist the `brcm80211`, `b43`, and `ssb` kernel modules to prevent them from loading automatically. For instructions, see Kernel_modules#Blacklisting.

Note: You may not have to blacklist the `brcm80211` driver; although as of 2011-06-20, it will still default to loading the `brcm80211` module before the `wl` driver, which prevents `wl` from being used.

Check if you updated your module dependencies:

    # depmod -a

- Verify that your wireless interface(s) appear using `ip addr`.
- You may need to restart your machine to see the device appear in `iwconfig` or `ip addr`.
- If you have recently upgraded your kernel, you need to rebuild the `broadcom-wl` package with the new kernel installed to update the module.

### Interfaces swapped (broadcom-wl)

Users of the `broadcom-wl` driver may find their Ethernet and Wi-Fi interfaces have been swapped. See Network configuration#Device_names for solution.

### The b43 driver and Linux 3.8+

The b43 driver has some major issues starting with the release of Linux 3.8+, namely that you are unable to see / connect to some access points.

Solution: Try the latest broadcom-wl driver (version 6+), see above.

### Suppressing console messages

You may continuously get some verbose and annoying messages during the boot, similar to

    phy0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: arp filtering: enabled true, count 0 (implement)
    phy0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: qos enabled: false (implement)
    phy0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: arp filtering: enabled true, count 1 (implement)
    enabled, active

These do not seem to be suppressible via normal means, such as setting `MaxLevelConsole` in `/etc/systemd/journald.conf`. To hide them, you must lower the level at which `dmesg` messages are printed to the console. This can be done on start-up by creating a simple systemd service.

Create a file in `/etc/systemd/system/` called `brcms_suppression.service` or something similar:

    brcms_suppression.service

    [Unit]
    Description=Broadcom console message suppression script

    [Service]
    Type=oneshot
    RemainAfterExit=yes
    ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'dmesg -n 3'

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

Like all other systemd services, you can then enable it with

    # systemctl enable brcms_suppression

### Interface is showing but does not allow connections

Append the following to your kernel command line:

    b43.allhwsupport=1

### Miscellaneous user notes

See Talk:Broadcom wireless.

Category:

- Wireless Networking