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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.

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_5.10.91.9-1_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_5.10.91.9-1_all.deb
  4. Install the squeeze/broadcom-sta-common and squeeze/broadcom-sta-source packages via dpkg:

    $ su
    # dpkg -i broadcom-sta-common*deb broadcom-sta-source*deb
  5. Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:

    # m-a a-i broadcom-sta
  6. Add wl to the list of kernel modules to be loaded at boot:

    # echo wl >> /etc/modules
  7. Load the wl module:

    # modprobe wl
  8. Verify your device has an available interface:

    # iwconfig
  9. Raise the interface to activate the radio, for example:

    # ifconfig wlan0 up
  10. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Squeeze

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

    # Debian Squeeze
    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. Add wl to the list of kernel modules to be loaded at boot:

    # echo wl >> /etc/modules
  5. Load the wl module:

    # modprobe wl
  6. Verify your device has an available interface:

    # iwconfig
  7. Raise the interface to activate the radio, for example:

    # ifconfig wlan0 up
  8. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

Known Issues

See bugs reported on broadcom-sta-source.

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:

See Also


CategoryHardware | CategoryWireless