Wireless on Debian with your Broadcom AirForce One 54g (bcm43xx)

00:0b.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02) on my Acer Aspire 5003 laptop.

Last night I nuked and reinstalled my Etch system on my laptop. Man have those programmers made it easy to install Etch -- but that's a different article for a different day -- today is all about wireless.

There is only one program that I had to install and one file management task that I had to accomplish to get wireless up and running. SO, let's get right to it as my stomache is starting to growl...

People are a little confused about the bcm43xx driver that comes with Etch now. They are of the impression that since this is installed automatically now and they see info on it when they run $ dmesg that there must be some error or problem becaue their wireless does not work out-of-the-box. Well, it's simple. Ya -- Etch includes the bcm43xx driver, but it does not include the firmware necessary for the hardware. You still need to get that firmware installed on your box. But fear not, it's all auto, baby. Here's what I did:

Prerequisites include having the linux-headers specific to your kernel and you should have build-essential installed as well. In fact, you should install build-essential on all your Linux boxes as a rule. Also, don't forget to append the end of your repo entries with the contrib repository. bcm43xx-fwcutter is not in the main repositories. See my repositories below:

I fired up my terminal, became root and installed bcm43xx-fwcutter. During the install of bcm43xx-fwcutter I was asked if I would like to download and extract the firmware for the card. There was no "Hell yeah!" option, but yes was there - so that's what I chose.

After you run bcm43xx-fwcutter, if you anwsered yes to the aforementioned question, you will have the necessary files to run your card extracted into the /lib/firmware directory. Next, I unplugged my cat-5, or, "ethernet" cable and went to the following menu:

There I config'd my cards - there was an eth0 which Debian saw as my ethernet card, and eth1 which it saw as my wireless card. Sometimes on install it reverses these. No worries.

You can clearly see from the pic that Debian has both "cards" listed. You simply click on your wireless listing, choose properties, and fill in your credentials. You set the essid and password up when you configured your router. Put the same info in here. Choose to allow dhcp to pick up an IP address for you or set a static ip yourself. I usually pick a static IP becuase my server wants to share its resources (printing, etc) to specific IP addresses. I'll allow DHCP when I plug my laptop into another network.

There can be problems if you run both your eth0 and eth1 concurrently, so I like to activate my wireless card and deactivate my ethernet card. You will also see in the properties of each that there is a check box "enabling" each connection. This means that when you boot your machine both cards will be ready to go. I have both of my cards checked, so they are both enabled, however only one is activated at a time.

Impressive
written by 'Guest', January 20, 2007

Nice writing style too.

Very useful!
written by 'Guest', January 29, 2007

Hey, you make my night! I change a lot my mind about Debian and Linux after your prescription worked. You have to release an (electronic) book to insert it in my stick (okay, wget;). Really you was very concise and very exactly. Thanks a lot! Emil Toma (Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo-Pro v2030)

Woohoo!
written by 'Guest', January 29, 2007

You\'re welcome! I\'m glad you found what you were looking for.

Broadcom Radio Card 4318
written by mhwelsh, February 04, 2007

Failed miserably using Ubuntu 6.1 and Xandros4.

In both instances the card never appears to receive a signal generated 2ft from its ear!
Xandros has a little radio detector module that scans the area and this can find no signal.In this instance the card fails or goes to \'pending\' for lack of DHCP. Ubuntu is not so helpful but the end result is the same.

The machine is an Acer Travelmate 4400 with Turion 64 cpu and the \'card\' buried wihin its entrails.

Any analytical suggestions or advice will be gratefully received.

Definitely not a geek,

martin welsh

the radio aspect
written by 'Guest', February 06, 2007

This is not a working aspect of the driver at this point. I am not 100% sure about this -- but I see as my machine boots that this aspect is not working. Probably a flag to set at compile time -- which my brief guide does not address.

As you are aware, this site is about Debian. Ya -- Ubuntu is based on it, and so is Xandros...but there are significant differences.

I suppose that your machine is still needing the ndiswrapper. Or, do you get wireless at all?

Post something in my little forum -- we\'ll get you sorted.

the radio aspect
written by mhwelsh, February 07, 2007

First law of communications;
If you receive no messages - are any being sent.

In my case I have a second computer 2ft away which displays signal stength from the transmitter. I therefor deduce that the receiver is kaput.

My \'normal\' system is Xandros and in version 4 it has this handy little box which displays callsign and signal strength.

Machiner has me under his wing and hopefully there will be a eureka message in due course.

martin welsh

Wireless
written by 'Guest', February 12, 2007

Thank you machiner!

I\'m posting this using my BCM4318 with a 128 bit WEP key and a hidden essid for the \'first\' time.

Thanks for all the work you\'ve put in these very good tutorials.

Greg

Good info ..........
written by 'Guest', February 12, 2007

Machiner,

Got my Broadcom 4318 runnin\' this weekend (after installing Etch over Sarge) ..... good job!

You might want to mention that bcm-fwcutter is in the \'unstable\' repository.

aw

hmmmm
written by machinerposingasguest, February 19, 2007

Martin -- I would love to help you, but alas, I have exactly 0 (zero) experience on a Xandros or similar system. I would think that by their very design philosophy that they weould have some sort of tool for you to use. Maybe the ndiswrapper solution is the one you need.

I am sorry. However, please -- should you find your solution, please post it here as a comment -- of in my new forum

--machiner

Travelmate 4400 wireless
written by 'Guest', February 20, 2007

@MArtin Welsh:

Got the same laptop. It doesn\'t work because the TM4400 is different from other laptops because the button that enables the wireless seems to be software controlled. IT will work with windows xp, windows 2000, vista, and thats about it. but to get it working with Linux, I don\'t think is possible.

I have tried on a number of occasions on distros randing from Debian to SUSE to Xandros... roughly 10 seperate distros with no luck. Best option would be to get an external card and pray its better than the built in one...

yes
written by 'Guest', February 25, 2007

hot!
i tried the madwifi drivers to no avail, but this, this works.

great tutuorials!

-steve

Lists the APs, but no connection to the
written by 'Guest', March 10, 2007

I followed the instructions and it shows a list of APs with iwlist eth1 scanning command. but when I issue iwconfig eth1 essid \"ESSIDNAME\" it shows it is connected, but no connection to the net (no pinging at all)

I also have a wpa-enabled wireless. What do I need to connect to such WPA-enabled network? wpa_suppliant?

will try
written by 'Guest', March 11, 2007

I\'m fighting with Broadcom in my travelmate for a long time. Hope this tutorial would help me :/

-LeDN

There is a forum for this
written by machiner, March 11, 2007

Please post questions in the forum. This comments section is for stuff like:

Woohoo -- this article really helped

or

No way, man -- you're wrong

and stuff like that. Use the forum.

Lost from step one - how DO you install
written by 'Guest', April 07, 2007

I think your tutorial just might send me along the path of success, even though I am currently running PCLinuxOS 2007. But I am totally a newbie here, and I am not yet familiar with installing things. I have downloaded a BCM43xx-fwcutter archived file for my Broadcom 4318, and I managed to get that archive extracted OK. But most of what is in it seems to be text based documents. ( I think it is SO COOL how hovering my cursor over a file in this distro is showing me a description of it and a thumbnail image! Where is MS on that idea!)

So, what do I do next? How do I tell Linux to install the FWcutter tool, so I can execute the command
bcm43xx-fwcutter-w/tmp FILE ( where FILE is the source Windows driver) so it will extract the file it needs and write it to /tmp?

It is installed
written by machiner, April 07, 2007

Just read the tutorial over again. The drivers come with Etch -- you extracted the firmware, now -- put them where they need to go.

Nickel
written by 'Guest', April 07, 2007

C\'est OK Ca marche du 1ercoup :D

It\'s OK, it\'s good for the 1st try !

thanks
written by 'Guest', April 12, 2007

thank you for the tuto
it works great on my HT Pavillion zv6000 with debian etch.

Oups, I would have rather said : \"Woohoo -- this article really helped\" ;-P

thank you again

Right On
written by 'Guest', April 12, 2007

You instructions worked perfectly on my Gateway MX6424 laptop.

Many thanks!

I\'m in wireless h***!!!
written by 'Guest', May 01, 2007

Been trying for a couple of weeks now to get wireless up and running on my Inspiron 7500. Had a wireless card with an Atheros chipset on it - gave that up. Now I have one with the chipset in this article. I blew away Knoppix HD install, and now I have Etch. Have a Belkin wireless router with my wireless internet connected to it. I can get the wired Netgear Eth0 adapter to work just fine, but no luck yet with the wireless.
The only thing I haven\'t done yet is install the headers and build-essential. What do these do? Would not having these installed keep my wireless card from connecting?
I was able to extract the *.fw files and put them in the /lib/hotplug/firmware directory. I ran the network-admin utility to set up the card, but still no luck. I keep getting \"network not available\" when trying to ping the router. I can get the card up with \"ifconfig eth1 up\", but it will not get an address (IP address, I think). I think the /etc/network/interfaces file is O.K. I\'m not at my laptop right now, but later I will attach relevant part of dmesg.
Is there something on the router (other than security settings) that may be keeping me from connecting?
I have to do everything wrong at least once to get it right. Welcome to my world!
(GREAT site, by the way!)

EDIT: please post this in the forum.
/EDIT

acer
written by 'Guest', May 12, 2007

All are ok but my laptop an acer 3022 WLMi seems to be connected but my wireless card (eth0) is disconnected!!! like showing in the connection properties in gnome. The problem is that the card remains OFF, i try acer aspi but it seems do nothing.
http://code.google.com/p/aceracpi/
When i had ubuntu with ndiswrapper and acer acpi all are OK. Now i tried with ndiswrapper and it says invalid driver! Any ideas ?

{EDIT: I posted this in the forum}

Worked on Feisty Compaq presario v2100
written by 'Guest', May 14, 2007

worked just fine. My roduter is an actiontec that gives me 192.168.0.1 as the first dns server, so I had to manually go in and tell it to use my isp\'s dns server instead of my dsl modems, but other that that, it was sweet. We\'ll see how it works on suspend and resume (thats why I bailed the ndiswrapper. this was on a fresh clean install of feisty, I had mucked too much with too many settings on the previous install)

Offline?
written by 'Guest', May 15, 2007

I feel stupid for asking this, but is there a way to do this offline? like, download to some media, then bring it to the affected comp?

Ie: I do not have an internet connection yet, ergo I cannot download the the firmware to GET on the internet.

before I go searching for the deb file and trying to figure out dpkg I\'d like to know if it\'s even possible..

(this is on a fresh install of ubuntu edgy eft, which may or may not include headers and build-essential on the cd)

[EDIT -- I posted this to the forum]

thx
written by 'Guest', May 29, 2007

hi

i often tried to get my wlan to work during the last year. but nothing worked... i tried ndiswrapper (could scan but not connect :( ), i tried the bcm43xx with fwcutter, but nothing worked. this was the first time i read about copieing the fw files to the hotplug directory and no everything works perfekt. thank you :D

Another Woohoo!
written by 'Guest', May 30, 2007

Worked perfectly on my HP zd8000. I\'ve dumped ndiswrapper and am now using the native bcm43xx driver. This will make kernel upgrades a lot easier--no more reinstalling the ndiswrapper module. Thanks for the clear instructions.

Tim

The developers at Debian rock!
written by 'Guest', June 03, 2007

Totally beats the manual install. If I had known about the new scripts now being utilized with the package, I would have chucked my cat5 weeks ago.
p.s.
I found that the kwifimanager worked for me.

Thanks
Eric

Thanks, lifesaver!
written by 'Guest', June 10, 2007

That was great, thanks! I have had success previously using a 2.4 kernel with a BCM4318 and ndiswrapper; however when I tried that on my Debian server, it didn\'t work. Then I found this guide - I then got it working in a matter of seconds! Thanks alot!

Problems
written by 'Guest', June 20, 2007

I tried these steps on a laptop with BCM4318 running 64 bit Debian Lenny. After going through the process you described above, my computer crashes; that is, GNOME (or linux itself) appears to stop working - all input is ignored, and the computer refuses to respond no matter what I do. A blacklist bcm43xx in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist is necessary to even get my computer to start GNOME at all (otherwise it crashes after starting GNOME).
I\'ve installed bcm43xx on other systems (Etch being one, and 64 bit ubuntu being another). What could be wrong?

[EDIT: I am currently running Etch amd64 and got wireless going with my tutorial. Except for the "network-admin" part, I did not install Gnome this time. Post your issues to the forum or contact me directly through the contact page. We'll get you sorted.]

Debian 4.0 r0 w/Dell Inspiron 1501
written by 'Guest', June 25, 2007

Hey guys. I\'m trying to get my wireless card working on my laptop, and I\'ve followed these instructions, but I\'m not seeing my wireless interface with iwconfig or ifconfig -a. I noticed that the bcm43xx driver seems to load without even having firmware, which is weird. I moved the firmware out of /lib/firmware and /lib/hotplug/firmware and did modprobe bcm43xx and it loaded. It seems like the driver thinks it has firmware somewhere, right?

lsmod gives me this

bcm43xx 403712 0
firmware_class 9472 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211softmac 24832 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 28744 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

iwconfig gives me this

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

My installation is pretty much the default installation from the netinst CD, so that should give you an idea of my environment. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT -- post this in the forum -- but where's eth1?

Possible error?
written by 'Guest', June 28, 2007

According to the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide[1], firmware should be placed in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, not in /lib/hotplug/firmware.

[1] http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch02s06.html#nics-firmware

[EDIT] -- That's interesting stuff. Apt puts the firmware in /lib/firmware. I understand why they would mention /usr to keep stuff untangled, but it works fine in /lib/hotplug/firmware and causes no errors, trouble. Do what you feel and I'll make a note in the tutorials. Thanks, machiner

Worked flawlessly for me, but...
written by 'Guest', June 28, 2007

... I wonder if I have to repeat this procedure after each kernel update.

Thanks for the great tutorial!!!

[edit] Nah. This is Debian.

To end the controversy
written by 'Guest', June 29, 2007

On a default Debian Etch (4.0 r0) install, the location of the firmware files is announced to the system by variables in the file /lib/udev/hotplug.functions. In this file, the FIRMWARE_DIRS variable is set to \"/lib/firmware /usr/local/lib/firmware /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware\". Therefore, once the *.fw files are in /lib/firmware, there isn\'t much sense of them being in the proposed by the tutorial /lib/hotplug/firmware directory, until proven otherwise (e.g. bugs in bcm43xx kernel driver etc.). Please, do some testing on your system and alter the tutorial accordingly!

HTH,
Cheers!

[EDIT] Actually, no, it doesn't. Regardless of the coding, wireless doesn't work on many systems (mine included) until the files are copied to the directory I mentioned, or linked. It does you no good to become annoyed at my tutorial. It works. It does no harm to a system. There is no controversy. My tutorial is mentioned and refered to all over the web, because it works -- but that's cool because this is Linux. There are always different ways.

If you would like to contribute to the site, then contact me and let's get going. Otherwise, stop confusing the visitors that this site is intended to help. Ya dig?

THanks for coming by.

Thanks
written by 'Guest', July 14, 2007

Asus Z80K (Z8000 variant) notebook with bcm4306. Seems to work fine, including WPA.

Thanks for posting this.

Simply works. The Debian way!
written by 'Guest', July 28, 2007

HP Compaq 6710b

Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 02)

Debian Etch
kernel 2.6.22-1-amd64 x86_64 GNU/Linux from unstable

Thank you.

Toshiba 17\" Laptop can\'t get past the
written by 'Guest', August 25, 2007

http://www.debiantutorials.org/talkitup/index.php?topic=1612.msg2618#msg2618

I have a new hero.
written by 'Guest', September 19, 2007

I was in disbelief when my laptop loaded the google homepage. Then I noticed I had forgotten to unplug my ethernet cable - bummer, right? So I reluctantly unplugged the cable and wouldn\'t ya\' know, it worked!

Thank you so very much. I\'ve spent far too much time trying to get this to work.

a tutorial that produces the goods..
written by 'Guest', November 11, 2007

my old dell latitude PPL now can be used for another couple of years thanks to this tutorial and debian.
TA very much.

Update
written by 'Guest', November 18, 2007

Since this excellent tutorial\'s publication, the link that is built into Debian Etch\'s apt-get, to retrieve the firmware file, has gone dead. This causes the apt-get install to die without installing the firmware. I was able to track down the firmware file through the Internet Archive, but the Etch firmware cutter choked on it, complaining about a bad md5sum value.

A tutorial at http://www.stylesen.org/ configuring_wireless_bcm4318_airforce_card_of_hp_compaq _nx6110_in_debian_etch points out an alternate approach: retrieve the Windows driver from a link provided and run the firmware cutter against that. Unzip the archived file and substitute bcmwl5.sys for wl_apsta.o in the syntax in Step 4. (Change ~/Desktop/ to whatever path you have bcmwl5.sys stored in.

Works like a charm! I\'m now up and running. This was w-a-y less hassle than configuring and compiling the NDISwrapper, as was necessary (at least, as of two years ago) under Gentoo.

EDIT: You know -- I am sorry. You're right -- that link is FUBAR now and I noticed it a while ago but I haven't updated the tutorial. I will now.

WHat I did was -- well, it'll be in the tutorial. Thank you for lighting a fire 'neath my ass. --machiner

It works!
written by 'Guest', January 06, 2008

Thank you for a great article. I\'ve had problems with this wireless-card on Ubuntu before (the same as you have). Now when I read your tutorial, everything works fine in Debian.

Great and Backports
written by 'Guest', January 25, 2008

First all,
many many thanks, nice tutorial.

I had a problem to insall the driver... I just can install after upgrade kernel to etch-backports version, after that runs lke a charm.
(Im saying it to help someone too... who knows?)

Thank you again
sry my bad english

trigo

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