Broadcom 4311, 4312, 4313, 4321, 4322 devices (wl)
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Broadcom 4311/4312/4313/4321/4322 chipsets - using Broadcom's hybrid device driver - on Debian systems.
Contents
Some Broadcom wireless LAN chipsets are unsupported by the reverse-engineered b43 driver at this time, including:
- BCM4313 (PCI-ID: 14E4:4727)
- BCM4321 (PCI-IDs: 14E4:4328, 14E4:4329)
- BCM4322 (PCI-ID: 14E4:432B)
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.
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
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
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_5.60.48.36-1_all.deb
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_5.60.48.36-1_all.deb
Install the squeeze/broadcom-sta-common and squeeze/broadcom-sta-source packages via dpkg:
$ su # dpkg -i broadcom-sta-*deb
Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:
# m-a a-i broadcom-sta
Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:
# update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)
Unload conflicting modules:
# modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb
Load the wl module:
# modprobe wl
Verify your device has an available interface:
# iwconfig
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Squeeze
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
Update the list of available packages. Install the module-assistant and wireless-tools packages:
# aptitude update # aptitude install module-assistant wireless-tools
Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:
# m-a a-i broadcom-sta
Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:
# update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)
Unload conflicting modules:
# modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb
Load the wl module:
# modprobe wl
Verify your device has an available interface:
# iwconfig
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Known Issues
The Sonics Silicon Backplane driver (ssb) conflicts with the wl driver (545388, broadcom-sta-common/README.Debian).
b44, b43, b43legacy and ssb are blacklisted by default as of broadcom-sta 5.10.91.9.3-3.
- This prevents use of any Ethernet device supported by b44.
Frequent disconnections can be experienced. This may be resolved by disabling power management via iwconfig(8) (e.g. iwconfig eth1 power off).
- Monitor mode is not supported.
See bugs reported on broadcom-sta.
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 5.60.48.36:
PCI: 14E4:4311 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN PCI: 14E4:4312 Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g PCI: 14E4:4313 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a PCI: 14E4:4315 Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY PCI: 14E4:4328 Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n PCI: 14E4:4329 Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11b/g/n PCI: 14E4:432A Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 PCI: 14E4:432B Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller PCI: 14E4:432C Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11b/g/n PCI: 14E4:432D Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 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 LP-PHY
See Also
bcm43xx - Broadcom 43xx wireless devices
External Links
http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php - 802.11 Linux STA driver