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Broadcom BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225 devices (brcmsmac, brcm80211)
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Broadcom BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225 chipsets on Debian systems.
Contents
brcmsmac (brcm80211 prior to Linux 2.6.39) is a free and open source mac80211 driver, introduced in Linux 2.6.37.1
It supports wireless LAN devices based on specific Broadcom 802.11n PCIe wireless LAN chips:
- BCM4313
- BCM43224
- BCM43225
Supported devices are listed at the end of this page.
The driver is included in Debian Linux kernel images since linux-2.6 2.6.32-22, but is not available during installation of Debian Squeeze/6.0 (628975). Non-free firmware is required for device operation.
For support of other Broadcom PCI wireless LAN chipsets, see bcm43xx.
Installation
Squeeze
In this release, the driver is only available for the x86 and x86-64 architectures (Debian i386 and AMD64 ports respectively).
Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:
# Debian Squeeze/6.0 deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages and install the firmware-brcm80211 and wireless-tools packages:
# aptitude update # aptitude install firmware-brcm80211 wireless-tools
As the driver may already be loaded, reinsert the module to access installed firmware:
# modprobe -r brcm80211 ; modprobe brcm80211
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Wheezy
Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:
# Debian Wheezy (testing) deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian wheezy main contrib non-free
Update the list of available packages and install the firmware-brcm80211 and wireless-tools packages:
# aptitude update # aptitude install firmware-brcm80211 wireless-tools
As the driver may already be loaded, reinsert the module to access installed firmware:
# modprobe -r brcmsmac ; modprobe brcmsmac
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Supported Devices
Squeeze
The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo brcm80211 in Debian 2.6.32 (2.6.32-41) kernel images.
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/n Wireless LAN Controller
Wheezy
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo brcmsmac in Debian 3.2.0 (3.2.4-1) kernel images.
PCI: 14E4:0576 Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 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/n Wireless LAN Controller
See Also