Installing Broadcom Wireless STA Driver in Fedora 11
These are updated instructions for installing the Broadcom Wireless STA driver in Fedora 11. This driver is for use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4321-, and BCM4322-based hardware.
1) Enable the rpmfusion repositories.
The broadcom-wl and wl-kmod RPMs that we need are in the rpmfusion non-free repository which also requires the rpmfusion free repository. To enable these repos in Fedora 11 simply do this:
su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'2) Update and install the driver package
Now that you have the appropriate repository enabled, to install the driver package we first ensure that we have the latest updates and then install the "kmod-wl" package which will bring with it the required "broadcom-wl" package:
su -
yum update
yum install kmod-wl3) Make a couple of adjustments
At this stage you should reboot and provided you have Network Manager running (default setting for F11) it should detect your Broadcom wireless device and you should be able to connect to your wireless network.
If you're having problems then it is likely some conflict between Network Manager and the network service. To ensure that Network Manager can use the wireless go to System > Administration > Network and select the wireless device (if it's not there then this doesn't apply to you). Edit the device and check "Controlled by Network Manager" and "Activate device when computer starts". Close Network Configuration, save changes and then reboot.
You should also read the license and readme which are located in /usr/share/doc/
4) Enjoy your wireless!
That's all there is to it. At this stage you may need to reboot (if you didn't already) in order to enable the new driver and any new kernel that was installed during the update.
When future kernels are released a simple "yum update" command should install the new kernel and also pull in the updated Broadcom driver for that new kernel.
June 13th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Tried this, but its not working for me.
D630, BCM4312.
yum install wl-kmod
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Package akmod-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.i686 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do
modprobe wl
FATAL: Module wl not found.
help?
June 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
oh, and device is NOT showing up on "System > Administration > Network"
June 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
@Sagy: do this:
yum erase akmod-wl
yum install wl-kmod
June 14th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I did everything you say here and I can detect the wireless network but when I put the key doesn't conect to the network, that key is working in ubuntu but not with fedora, what can I do??
June 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
[...] cenolan.com What you looking at? « Installing Broadcom Wireless STA Driver in Fedora 11 [...]
June 14th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I have followed this tutorial, but my wireless is still not working. I have a Broadcom BCM4328 (rev 03).
My wireless does not show up neither in the tab Hardware nor Device in "System > Administration > Network".
I had successfully installed the driver in F10 (with the same tutorial, for F10), but now it is not working.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks
June 14th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
@Hugo
What is the output of the following commands:
lsmod | grep wl
rpm -qa | grep wl
Chris
June 14th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
The first results nothing:
# lsmod | grep wl
The other results this:
# rpm -qa | grep wl
broadcom-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.noarch
iwl4965-firmware-228.57.2.23-5.fc11.noarch
iwl5000-firmware-5.4.A.11-4.noarch
akmod-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.i686
iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-1.fc11.noarch
June 14th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Hugo, same to you as I said to Sagy above:
yum erase akmod-wl
yum install wl-kmod
That should do it. No idea why it is pulling in the akmod package instead of the kmod... odd.
June 14th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Chris, when I erased akmod and reinstalled wl-kmod, it reinstalled again the akmod.
So I tried to erase akmod one more time and install kmod-wl instead, and it worked! I'm in wireless right now!
Thanks very much for the help.
Hugo
June 14th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Hi Hugo, glad you got it working and thanks for the feedback. I will update the instructions to say install kmod-wl and not wl-kmod :)
June 14th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I did everything you say, I have a BCM4311 I can detect my wireless network, but I am using WEP and when ask for the key an d put it, I can't conect to the network, I have a couple of computer with diferent OS and all of them work except the one with Fedora., what can I do??
June 16th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I need help, I have a BCM4311 that works fine in Ubuntu, but it doesn't work with Fedora, I did everything you say here and I can detect my wireless network but I can't conect, I am using WEP and when try to conect it doesn't take the key, what can I do?, that key work's fine in the same computer using ubuntu but no with Fedora. can anybody help me???
June 16th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
excelente... me funciono perfecto con mi wireless. en un hp dv6 1030-us. gracias.....
June 18th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Thanks for providing this info. Finally I've got my BCM4312 on Acer Aspire 4720 laptop work now with WPA personal enabled.
I'm using Fedora 11. Now I'm still confused about the relationship between the Network Devices in System>Administration>Network and Network Connectons in System>Preference. After installed the driver, I can't see any wireless devices under System>Administration>Network, although I can see eth1 in Hardware under it. So I new one device based on the eth1 hardware. After this, nothing happened. Then I added one wireless connection under System>Preference>Network Connections. This time my laptop began to make connection to my AP. But now I have 2 wireless devices listed in Network Configuration. One is the device I created which is showed as Active. Another is a device with the same name as the Wireless Connection I created and it's showed as inactive. The "delete" tab is disabled so I can't delete anyone there. Is this in the right way?
Appreciate any clarification to help me understand this.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Hey Chris
I get this result with rpm -qa | grep wl:
broadcom-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.noarch
iwl4965-firmware-228.57.2.23-5.fc11.noarch
iwl5000-firmware-8.24.2.12-1.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.x86_64
iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-1.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.x86_64
However when I go to Network Manager I can see any wireless device, although under hardware I can see the Broadcome device.
Could you tell me what I should do in order to get the wireless running?
BTW I'm doing this on a Macbook 3.1 (Black Santa Rosa late 2007).
June 20th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Great , just work perfectly on HP compaq 6720S , broadcom BCM4311-
Thanks :)
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi, I tried the manual but it doesn't work. What can I do now? Which informations do you need??
thank you so much! =)
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Hey guys. It works perfectly on HP compaq c270br. Very nice job you guys who posted it. Thanks so much.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:28 am
Hi there,
The current driver (5.10.79.10) works flawlessly on WPA1/2 networks without EAP, and on WEP networks with EAP (802.11x/PEAP); unfortunately, connecting to WPA1/2 networks with EAP (or at least those using PEAP anyway) causes the system to lock hard: no panic messages, no reported error of any sort, just a complete freeze.
I've reported this to Broadcom, who didn't respond, but did issue a patch. Applying this patch resolved the problem for linux 2.6.27 (under Debian), and it would it would appear to now included in the most recent version of broadcom's driver (5.10.91.9).
I suspect that it would help many people if this new version of the driver could be packaged and uploaded to the rpmfusion repositories (particularly for x86_64)... I have just migrated to Fedora (as of yesterday) from Debian (after 4 years) so I have no idea how to build an rpm myself at this point; give me a week or two and I'll be more help. I will however report back here with any success or failure with my own manually compiled version (5.10.91.9) as soon as I've given it a good run.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:20 am
As an addendum to the last post, the most recent version of the driver (5.10.91.9) does not compile against the current kernel in Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64) at least on my system. It would appear that some kernel data structures and associated functions in the wireless stack have changed between 2.6.27 and 2.6.29, specifically:
the structure net_device no longer has a member priv
the function ieee80211_get_crypto_ops is either not defined, or its definition has moved.
The significant errors are:
error: implicit declaration of function ‘ieee80211_get_crypto_ops’
error: ‘struct net_device’ has no member named ‘priv’
The remaining errors are I think simply a consequence of those above; most are of the form:
error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
The structure net_device is defined in ${source}/include/linux/netdevice.h, and does have a member:
unsigned short priv_flags; /* Like 'flags' but invisible to userspace. */
but would not appear to have a member called priv (though it's a really big struct, so it's possible that I've missed it somehow). Interestingly, I can't find a member called priv in the definition of the structure in 2.6.27 either... not quite sure what this means, maybe its hidden by one of the macros?
The function ieee80211_get_crypto_ops would indeed seem to have disappeared however: it is defined in:
${2_6_27}/include/net/ieee80211_crypt.h:
struct ieee80211_crypto_ops *ieee80211_get_crypto_ops(const char *name);
but grepping the current sources reveals nothing. Not sure what function is supposed to replace it.
If you have any ideas on any of this, feel free to email me, or just comment in this thread and I'll check.
Daniel.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
As this page is one of the first hits in a google search for "fedora broadcom wl" I thought that I should just give an update:
it turns out that there is a Fedora package of version 5.10.91.9 in testing, available from:
http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/updates/testing/11/x86_64/
though it is not clear when this will make it out of testing and into the main repositories. Through several hours of heavy use on a WPA2-Enterprise network (PEAPv0 / MSCHAPv2) the driver has been very stable, so this version would appear to resolve the EAP issue (at least for PEAP).
June 24th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Mhh... My steps:
yum install kmod-wl
modprobe -wl
alias wlan0 wl written in modprobe.conf & modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-alias.conf
restart
it doesn't work =(
output from lsmod | grep wl is nothing
]# rpm -qa | grep wl
iwl5000-firmware-8.24.2.12-1.fc11.noarch
iwl4965-firmware-228.57.2.23-5.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.i586
iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-1.fc11.noarch
broadcom-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-5.10.79.10-2.fc11.9.i586
do you know what i can do??
thank you so much..
June 25th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Hi Daniel, the updated 5.10.91.9 build for 2.6.29 (current) kernel has now been pushed to the rpmfusion repository. Anyone else having troubles authenticating with their wireless router should update their driver with "yum update".
June 26th, 2009 at 7:07 am
This was probably the best post that was just to the point answering how to install wireless driver in Fedora - kudos to the writer..
June 26th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Thanks Chris, I've been using the version from testing (which I presume is the same as the one now in the main repository) for three days now and it works like a charm: no lock ups and no random disconnections, just unimpeded connectivity... Fedora is starting to feel just that little more like home.
Cheers,
Daniel.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
This device support monitor mode?
July 1st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Fantabulous!
I've searched hell lot of sites for getting broadcom 4312 work on Fedora 11....none worked except this!
Thanks a lot!! :)
July 6th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Thanks!!!
That seemed to work great for me:
yum erase akmod-wl
yum install wl-kmod
Again, thanks :-)
July 16th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Thankyou so much for this.
Been hunting around for hours upon hours.
Then I finally stumbled upon your tut for F9/10, and then found this.
Keep up the good work :)
Read your blog regularly, good stuff.
Cheers,
Lee.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:41 am
I have a Broadcom BCM4328 (rev 03) on Dell Inspiron 1525. I followed this tutorial and its work 100%! Thanks a lot!
July 27th, 2009 at 6:46 am
erm I am not sure but I think I saw somewhere that kernel-pae-devel is needed to make BCM4312 work.
Made my Lenovo G410 wifi working the following way:
1. Install kmod-wl - wireless not working, no device in Network Configuraton.
2. Install wl-kmod (during which kernel-pae-devel has been installed) - wireless work like a charm.
FYI my output of rpm -qa | grep wl
broadcom-wl
akmod-wl
iwl5000
iwl4965
kmod-wl
iwl3945
kmod-wl...PAE
(sorry for missing other part of the output, was typing this from my Windows PC)
July 29th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Thanks a lot, my wireless connection is now working on my Dell inspiron 1525 with a broadcom hw.
Regards.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Thanks Daniel for the link.
I updated today my system from a long vacation and what a surprise, the wireless was gone. I tried the normal method and it did not work out.
However I download the test rpm and it is up an running again. Cheers
August 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Just upgraded fedora 11 from 2.6.29.6-213.fc11.i586 to 2.6.29.6-217.2.3.fc11.i586 and my broadcom BCM4312 wlan now not working. It seems the wl driver is no longer recognised. yum update says 'nothing to do'. - Help!
August 7th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Excellent tutorial... followed the instructions and everything worked great!!! Kudos to the writer, I have looked everywhere to no avail but this worked flawlessly...
Thank you...
David
August 7th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Worked like a charm on Dell Inspiron 1525.
All worked after step 3: yum install kmod-wl and rebooting. After logging I had functional wireless and all networks successfully detected.
Thank You for the tutorial.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:55 am
thanks for this, it worked fine, saved me lots of time !!!!! you rock !!!
August 7th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I am running a hp dv9608nr.
August 7th, 2009 at 9:49 am
hi, thanks a lot it worked great!
August 16th, 2009 at 5:56 am
The problem with the procedure (nicely, thanks!) here is that the only connection that I have is wireless: no ethernet.
So I need to first download all the required rpm's, and then install them manually...
Could you document this too?
So far I do have two RPMS:
rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
Is that all I need to install?
Thanks.
Andy
August 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I followed this tutorial, but when I click on the NetworkManager icon, the wireless is disabled, and when I want to check it to enable it, the "Enable Wireless" checkbox is grayed out :(
anyone know what's wrong?
August 27th, 2009 at 2:41 am
I can see all wireless network around (including mine) but I still can't connect. I'm using WPA1-PSK Personal. Every time I try to connect the Network Manager keeps asking my password. Well, I really know my password, so why I can't connect? :(
Here my results, hope anyone can help me.
lsmod | grep wl:
wl 1274884 0
lib80211 6356 2 lib80211_crypt_tkip,wl
rpm -qa | grep wl:
kmod-wl-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64-5.10.91.9-3.fc11.6.x86_64
iwl5000-firmware-8.24.2.12-1.fc11.noarch
broadcom-wl-5.10.91.9-1.fc11.noarch
iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-1.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-5.10.91.9-3.fc11.6.x86_64
iwl4965-firmware-228.61.2.24-1.fc11.noarch
September 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
[...] Today, 07:41 PM 9.10 seems a completely wrong choice. The video display is blurred. So I choose to use FC11 ad follow this post: Installing Broadcom Wireless STA Driver in Fedora 11 | cenolan.com [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
These instructions worked perfectly for my Dell 1440 laptop. One strange thing I observe though, in
System -> Administration -> Network -> Hardware
the wireless device is listed as eth1, whereas it should be wlan0. Not a problem though, since it works well.
September 11th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Broadcom once more.
I find it difficult to get our new Dell Vostro 1520 working on wireless on our prefered distro F10,F11/32 or F11/64.
It performs alright on other Live distro.
When installing F11 I made sure not to install any driver at all.
I am not in these commands, but as can be seen below I have been searching. What more to look for I do not know.
$ '/sbin/lspci -nn | grep -i -e network'
0e:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
rpm -qa | grep wl
kmod-wl-2.6.30.5-43.fc11.x86_64-5.10.91.9-4.fc11.2.x86_64
broadcom-wl-5.10.91.9-1.fc11.noarch
kmod-wl-5.10.91.9-4.fc11.2.x86_64
lsmod | grep wl
wl 1282052 0
lib80211 6916 2 lib80211_crypt_tkip,wl
/etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf is ok.
# 'iwlist eth1 scan' displays the whole neighborhood
# iwconfig:
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"" Nickname:"vostro.localdomai"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Managementmode:All packets received
Link Quality=5/5 Signal level=0 dBm Noise level=0 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
pan0 no wireless extensions.
Network Configuration: No profile, but Hardware is present-('iwlist eth1 scan' is ok!).
Manual setup and activation of wireless:
/sbin/ifup: configuration for eth1 not found.
Usage: ifup
While determining ".....eth1" at booting, I can see the warning:
WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/.
Same as with modprobe wl and others.
And I have rebooted over and over again.
Is there any cure for love?
Regards.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
It works perfectly on HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx.
But I have to restart the NetworkManager.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Thanks!!! after a long time i've been able to use my wifi conection with Fedora... goodbye vista!!
October 8th, 2009 at 3:01 am
When i try yum install kmod-wl
i get this error:
error b43 conflict with broadcom-wl
October 25th, 2009 at 3:50 am
i did the exact steps up top, and now my computer doesnt seem to be finding my wireless nic at all. im not too familiar with fedora. any help would be appreciated.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:10 am
@rogvi Update your BIOS to AO3, that fixed it for me.
It seems that the AO2 BIOS keeps saying that the killswitch is on, even when it's off.