Broadcom* Drivers¶

Broadcom manufactures wireless network interfaces, including devices that support WiFi and Bluetooth® technology.

Broadcom wireless devices on Linux* have a lot of different combinations of possible required software depending on the exact model of your device. These combinations of software can overlap and conflict, creating an additional challenge to get working.

As with most hardware devices, two components are needed for complete functionality: a device driver and device firmware. These instructions show how to identify Broadcom wireless hardware and configure a Clear Linux OS system with the correct drivers and firmware for functionality.

Important

The Linux community has documented solutions and caveats for using specific Broadcom devices on Linux over time. It is worth doing research on your particular device model to see what others have already encountered.

Identify your device model
Drivers
Firmware
Troubleshooting

Identify your device model ¶

Broadcom device models start with BCM in the name and are identified by the PCI vendor ID 14e4. To identify the exact model of Broadcom device you have installed:

Run the commands below:
```
lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
```

Once the device model has been identified, you can cross-reference which drivers support it.

Drivers ¶

brcmfmac and brcmsmac¶

brcmfmac and brcmsmac, historically known as brcm80211, are open-source drivers for some newer Broadcom devices. These drivers are available in the upstream Linux kernel, are enabled in the Clear Linux OS kernels, and will be automatically loaded if a compatible device is detected.

See if your device is listed on the support matrix of this driver: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/brcm80211#supported_chips

It is important to note that not all functionality is developed for these drivers yet. If you are looking for specific functionality, be sure to review the “To be done” list.
The firmware for cards supported by the brcmfmac and brcmsmac drivers are usually made available. Continue reading the Firmware section of this document.

b43 and b43legacy¶

b43 and b43legacy are community reverse-engineered open-source drivers for some newer and older Broadcom devices. These drivers are available in the upstream Linux kernel, are enabled in the Clear Linux OS kernels, and will be automatically loaded if a compatible device is detected.

See if your device is listed on the support matrix of this driver: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#list_of_hardware
The firmware for cards supported by the b43 and b43legacy drivers usually needs to be sourced and installed manually. Continue reading the Firmware section of this document.

broadcom-wl¶

broadcom-wl, also known as broadcom-sta or wl, is the proprietary closed source driver from Broadcom and tends to work only for older devices. It is also unmaintained and needs to be patched to work with newer kernels (>=4.7). As such, it is not part of the Linux kernel, cannot be distributed by Clear Linux OS, and has to be built as an out-of-tree kernel module.

Note

It is recommended to use the LTS kernel if you have to use this driver.

See if your device is supported and download the Linux* STA 64-bit driver from Broadcom’s download website or another trusted source.

Extract the downloaded archive into a separate folder. For example:

mkdir ./broadcom-wl/
tar xvf ./hybrid-v35_64-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271.tar.gz -C broadcom-wl/
cd ./broadcom-wl/

Create a patches folder in the source tree and copy any necessary patches to it. You will have to research which specific set of patches are required for the running kernel version. The gentoo repository for broadcom-sta is a good place to start looking for up-to-date patches.
```
mkdir ./patches/
```
Install the DKMS bundle for your kernel. DKMS provides the framework to automatically rebuild the wl driver against new kernels versions from Clear Linux OS updates.

In the extracted driver directory, create a dkms.conf file based the contents below to provide DKMS information about how to build and install the kernel module. This example uses version 6.30.223.271.

cat <<'EOF' >> dkms.conf
PACKAGE_NAME=broadcom-wl
PACKAGE_VERSION=6.30.223.271
MAKE="make KBASE=/lib/modules/${kernelver}"
CLEAN="make KBASE=/lib/modules/${kernelver} clean"
BUILT_MODULE_NAME=wl
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION=/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
AUTOINSTALL=yes
EOF

Add the filename of any patches previously added to the patches folder to the dkms.conf file so that DKMS applies them to the driver source before building. Below are example patch names to show the format used in dkms.conf.
```
echo "PATCH[0]="first.patch" >> dkms.conf
echo "PATCH[1]="second.patch" >> dkms.conf
echo "PATCH[2]="third.patch" >> dkms.conf
```
Copy the directory to the dkms tree. This example uses version 6.30.223.271.
```
sudo cp -Rv . /usr/src/broadcom-wl-6.30.223.271
```
Run the dkms commands to add the broadcom-wl module to the dkms tree, build it, and install it. This example uses version 6.30.223.271.
```
sudo dkms add -m broadcom-wl -v 6.30.223.271
sudo dkms install -m broadcom-wl -v 6.30.223.271
```

Blacklist all other variations of Broadcom drivers from loading to prevent conflicts and problems.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/modprobe.d/

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom.conf > /dev/null <<'EOF'
blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist bcma
EOF

Reboot the system and check that the module is loaded and working. If not, try manually updating dependencies and loading the module.
```
depmod -a
modprobe wl
```

Firmware ¶

In addition to device drivers, devices require firmware that gets loaded onto the device directly.

Firmware for Broadcom devices are not fully open-source and not always licensed for redistribution. Clear Linux OS kernel bundles include the linux-firmware bundle which contains the firmware binaries that are able to be redistributed. If your device’s firmware is part of the linux-firmware repository, nothing else is needed. This is usually the case for devices supported by the brcmfmac and brcmsmac drivers.

In other cases, firmware may need to be obtained or extracted manually from a trusted source because it is not licensed for distribution. This is usually the case for devices supported by the b43 and b43legacy drivers. Obtaining these firmware is out of scope for this document, however there is information about solutions to this problem available on the Linux wireless wiki.

On Clear Linux OS systems, firmware should be placed in /etc/firmware. See the Firmware documentation for more information on loading custom firmware.

Troubleshooting ¶

See which drivers are currently loaded with the lsmod and modinfo commands.
If your device is not showing up or having intermittent issues, ensure the card is not blocked by the kernel with the rfkill command.
Try blacklisting all the other variations of drivers not intended to be used. In some cases, the wrong device driver will be loaded causing problems.
If an external firmware image is required, it may be trying to load from a different path than expected. Check the output of sudo dmesg | grep -i firmware for firmware loading issues.

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Broadcom* Drivers¶

Identify your device model¶

Drivers¶