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Broadcom 4311, 4312, 4313, 4321, 4322, 43224, 43225, 43227, 43228
devices (wl)
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Broadcom
4311/4312/4313/4321/4322/43224/43225/43227/43228 chipsets - using Broadcom's hybrid device driver - on Debian systems.

Contents
1. Bro adco m 4311, 4312, 4313, 4321, 4322, 43224, 43225, 43227, 43228 devices (wl)
1. Installatio n

1. Squeeze
2. Lenny
3. Wheezy

2. Kno wn Issues
3. Suppo rted Devices

4. See Also
5. External Links

Some Broadcom wireless LAN chipsets are unsupported by the reverse-engineered b43 driver at this time, including:

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 BCM4321 (PCI-IDs: 14E4:4328, 14E4:4329, 14E4:432A)
BCM4322 (PCI-IDs: 14E4:432B, 14E4:432C, 14E4:432D)

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. All supported devices are listed at the end of this page.

This vendor driver depends on the x86 or x86-64 architecture (Debian i386 and AMD64 ports respectively) at this time.

The BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 chipsets are alternatively supported by the brcm80211 driver.

Installation

Squeeze

1. 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

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:

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 # m-a a-i broadcom-sta

4. Blacklist the brcm80211 module, to prevent it conflicting for support of BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 devices:

# echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

5. Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:

# update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

6. Unload conflicting modules:

# modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

7. Load the wl module:

# modprobe wl

8. Verify your device has an available interface:

# iwconfig

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9. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate. See also known issues.

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_5.60.48.36-2_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_5.60.48.36-2_all.deb

4. Install the squeeze/broadcom-sta-common and squeeze/broadcom-sta-source packages via dpkg:

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 $ su

# dpkg -i broadcom-sta-*deb

5. Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:

# m-a a-i broadcom-sta

6. Blacklist the brcm80211 module, to prevent it conflicting for support of BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 devices:

# echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

7. Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:

# update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

8. Unload conflicting modules:

# modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

9. Load the wl module:

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

# iwconfig

11. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate. See also known issues.

Wheezy

1. 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

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

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4. Unload conflicting modules:

# modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

5. Load the wl module:

# modprobe wl

6. Verify your device has an available interface:

# iwconfig

7. Configure your wireless interface as appropriate. See also known issues.

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 (brcm80211 since 5.100.82.38-1).
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.

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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 built from squeeze/broadcom-sta-source:

PCI: 14E4:4311 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN

PCI: 14E4:4312 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 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/n Wireless LAN Controller

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo wl built from wheezy/broadcom-sta-source:

PCI: 14E4:0576 Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n

PCI: 14E4:4311 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
PCI: 14E4:4312 Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 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

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 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: 14E4:4358 Broadcom Corporation BCM43227 802.11b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:4359 Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n
PCI: 14E4:435A Broadcom Corporation (Device name unknown)
PCI: 14E4:4727 Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
PCI: 14E4:A99D Broadcom Corporation (Device name unknown)

See Also

bcm43xx - Broadcom 43xx wireless devices

brcm80211 - Broadcom 4313, 43224, 43225 devices
How to use a WiFi interface
NDISwrapper

External Links

http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php - 802.11 Linux STA driver

CategoryHardware | CategoryWireless

wl (last edited 20 11-0 4-0 8 0 5:19 :10 by Geo ffSimmo ns)

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