Fedora 7 and Broadcom 43xx WI-FI drivers

[Randall]

If you just installed fedora 7 and have issues using older firmware drivers. You need newer version firmware for your wi-fi card to work in native mode. Here is what you need to do to get the latest firmware and how to make it work.

 

be sure you are root to install the packages and run the commands below

 

1. Install bcm4300-fwcutter

Code:

yum install bcm43xx-fwcutter

 

2.Download the 4.x broadcom firmware

Code:

wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

 

3. extract the package

Code:

tar xjvf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

 

4. run the bcm-43xx firmware cutter

Code:

bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod/wl_apsta.o

 

5. You can either reboot or run the command below

Code:

modprobe bcm43xx

 

Now your broadcom wireless card should work with out any more issues.

[anyweb]

great post randall thanks, and pinned.

[iceportal]

Tried this with no luck. Apparently, my Fedora 7 installation forgot modprobe. Are there any other simple ways of getting Broadcom chipset cards installed on F7?

 

(I tried modprobe, and the command didn't exist. I also tried reboot, to no avail. And I simply copy-pasted all the commands you had here, so I'm not sure what went wrong.)

[hybrid]

Are you running as root when trying to run modprobe? If not, you need to type this before doing the commands in the tutorial:

 

Code:

su -

 

Enter your root password when prompted.

[iceportal]

Are you running as root when trying to run modprobe? If not, you need to type this before doing the commands in the tutorial: 

Code:

su -

<div>


 

Enter your root password when prompted.

</div>

 

Yep. I executed ALL commands as root, as you said. (Opened terminal, su with password, then copy-pasted each in turn.)

 

There wasn't any problem until the last command (modprobe). It stated that the modprobe package didn't exist. So I tried installing it but couldn't find where to get it.

 

Also... The drivers I used to use with NDISWrapper are the bcmwl5 ones... It worked fine in Ubuntu (easy as pie to set up wireless) but I've had no luck yet with F7.

[anyweb]

Yep. I executed ALL commands as root, as you said. (Opened terminal, su with password, then copy-pasted each in turn.)

 

try su -

 

instead of su

 

that's su with a space and a minus after it

 

Code:

su -

 

su gives you root

 

su - gives you root and root's path to stuff (like modprobe)

[iceportal]

try su - 

instead of su

 

that's su with a space and a minus after it

 

Code:

su -

<div>


 

su gives you root

 

su - gives you root and root's path to stuff (like modprobe)

</div>

 

Okay, I'll try that.

[iceportal]

Still no luck, I'm going to try starting over from scratch.

 

You know what would be nice? A shell-script to do all of this automatically. If it doesn't already exist, someone should write it, as it seems all of this is just a simple shell command list anyways.

 

It would also be nice if the shell script were packaged with the firmware, so that it would just require one download.

 

I might try to do this myself...

 

I'll let you guys know.

[iceportal]

No such luck. I ran through the entire command list numerous times, with various methods of being root.

 

First, tried logging in as normal user then opening terminal and 'su -' to root, then ran commands. Didn't work.

 

Second, (after restart) I tried doing it by logging in as root and running them all directly. Didn't work.

 

Third, (after restart), I tried going to System->Administration->Network and checking to see if the wireless was there.

 

It was, but it was inactive. When I tried to activate it (by clicking its entry and clicking "Activate") it didn't work, and it gave me this error:

 

Code:

tg3 device eth1 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

 

Any ideas?

[squirrel]

Will this bcm4300-fwcutter solution work on Fedora 6 too? I just installed fedora 6 and am getting the following error message:

 

Determining IP information for eth1 ... failed; no link present. Check cable?

 

I have the following hardware detected:

eth1 (Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller). I disabled firewall and SELinux and rebooted. Still didn't work. any help?