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Broadcom 4311, 4312, 4321, 4322 devices (wl)

This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Broadcom 4311/4312/4321/4322 chipsets - using Broadcom's hybrid device driver - on Debian systems.

Contents

  1. Broadcom 4311, 4312, 4321, 4322 devices (wl)
    1. Installation
      1. Lenny
      2. Squeeze
    2. Known Issues
    3. Supported Devices
    4. See Also
    5. External Links

Some Broadcom wireless LAN chipsets are unsupported by the reverse-engineered b43 and b43legacy drivers at this time, including:

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.

{i} An alternate method of support for your device may be possible using NDISwrapper.

<!> The vendor driver depends on the x86 or x86-64 architecture (Debian i386 and AMD64 ports respectively) at this time.

Installation

Lenny

  1. Install the build-essential, debhelper, module-assistant, quilt and wireless-tools packages: 

    $ su
# aptitude update
# aptitude install build-essential debhelper module-assistant quilt wireless-tools
# exit

  2. Manually acquire the squeeze/broadcom-sta-source package from http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/all/broadcom-sta-source/download. For example: 

    $ wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta-source_5.10.91.9.3-3_all.deb

  3. Manually acquire the squeeze/broadcom-sta-common package from http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/all/broadcom-sta-common/download. For example: 

    $ wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta-common_5.10.91.9.3-3_all.deb

  4. Install the squeeze/broadcom-sta-common and squeeze/broadcom-sta-source packages via dpkg: 

    $ su
# dpkg -i broadcom-sta-*deb

  5. Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant: 

    # m-a a-i broadcom-sta

  6. Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs: 

    # update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

  7. Unload conflicting modules: 

    # modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb

  8. Load the wl module: 

    # modprobe wl

  9. Verify your device has an available interface: 

    # iwconfig

  10. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Squeeze

  1. Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example: 

    # Debian Squeeze (testing)
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free

  2. Update the list of available packages. Install the module-assistant and wireless-tools packages: 

    # aptitude update
# aptitude install module-assistant wireless-tools

  3. Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant: 

    # m-a a-i broadcom-sta

  4. Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs: 

    # update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

  5. Unload conflicting modules: 

    # modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb

  6. Load the wl module: 

    # modprobe wl

  7. Verify your device has an available interface: 

    # iwconfig

  8. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Known Issues

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo wl as of driver version 5.10.91.9.3:

See Also

CategoryHardware | CategoryWireless

wl (last edited 2010-01-27 23:19:09 by GeoffSimmons)