I'm having serious problems installing the Broadcom drivers for Ubuntu. It worked perfectly on my previous version, but now, it is impossible.
What are the steps to install Broadcom wireless drivers for a BCM43xx card?
I'm a user with no advance knowledge in Linux, so I would need clear explanations on how to make, compile, etc.
lspci -vnn | grep Network showed:
Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b]
iwconfig showed:
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
NOTE: Answer below is updated every time new information is added and confirmed working.
Best Answer
0. Introduction and Background
This answer is based on an extensive research done by various Ubuntu users that worked together in almost all issues related to Broadcom. Special thanks to chili555 who helped in the Ubuntu forums and on this site with many questions related to Wireless devices and to others who have contributed through E-Mail, chats, IRC and more in testing various drivers with several of the most popular Broadcom Wireless cards (Huge Thanks to Chili555 really. This guy knows his stuff).
In total we wanted to offer an answer that could be easy to follow and covered most Broadcom Cards / Drivers. After you follow this guide, you will NEED to test your wireless connection for at least 2 hours (I actually recommend 8 hours) with another device in either Ad-Hoc Mode, Infrastructure Mode or Both. Common problems that will be solved (Apart from drivers not installing) are:
Link 1 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1060268
Link 2 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/+bug/732677
Link 3 - Gives an error similar to "Sorry, installation of this driver failed."
So with that in mind, the following is what we have right now which is simplified in just 3 steps:
1. Knowing what Broadcom Wireless Card you have
There are dozens of Broadcom wireless cards and more seem to appear every day. The key to finding the correct driver for any network card is what is known as the PCI ID (PCI.ID). To find out which PCI.ID you have, we proceed to opening the terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+T (It should open a window with a blank background) and inside this terminal we run the following command:
You will get something like the following if you have a Broadcom Wireless Adapter (The ID 14e4 used in the example above in most cases is a Broadcom Wireless Card):
The PCI.ID in this example is 14e4:4320 as seen inside the Brackets [...]. In some cases you will also need the revision version (if it appears) for some special cases. In this case, the revision version is rev 03 as shown inside the Parentheses (...) at the end. So what you will need after this search is:
With this new information you can look in the table below and select the appropriate method to install your driver. For example, In this case, since you have the 14e4:4320 rev 03, if we go down the list to the one that shows the exact same PCI.ID you will see that in the columns for Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04 it shows the
firmware-b43-installerpackage driver. This means that you will only have to install this particular package since it appears in all Ubuntu version columns.NOTE - Before proceeding, if you have previously installed any drivers, have blacklisted or uncommented any driver files or configuration files or have done any changes whatsoever to the system to make the drivers work in previous attempts, you will need to undo them in order to follow this guide. We assume you are doing this from scratch and have not changed any configuration files, modules or drivers in the system in any way (apart from updating the system). This includes any installations using apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, dpkg, software center or manual compilation and installation of the packages. The system has to start from scratch in order for this to work and to avoid any conflicts that may appear if earlier work was done.
For example, if you have previously installed the
bcmwl-kernel-sourcepackage, you will need to remove it by using the purge method:2. Preparing the System
If you have just installed Ubuntu, you will need to build an index of available packages before we can install your driver if you have not done so already:
I would even go so further as to update the Ubuntu list of PCI.IDs:
Just in case the ID of a particular new Broadcom Device you are using has just appeared.
Now using the PCI.ID you found in the steps above, we then search in the list below to find the matching PCI.ID and the method to install the driver associated with it in a simple and correct way. The terminal will be used to avoid any GUI related issues. This applies with all cases, except as noted. The installation procedure is done only via terminal and also while connected to the internet with a temporary wired ethernet connection or USB modem or any means possible that can give your PC, for the time, Internet access. After you find in the list below the correct package we then proceed with the installation.
3. Installing the Package (online)
Assuming you used the PCI.ID 14e4:4320 rev 03 as found in your search above, and then looked at the table below and found that the correct package to install is the
firmware-b43-installer(Specific to Broadcom) and thelinux-firmware(Carries over Broadcom related drivers along with other types of drivers), we then proceed to simply install this package in the terminal:and then reboot
The format to install is pretty simple, it's just:
In the example above, the PACKAGE_NAME is
firmware-b43-installer.BROADCOM WIRELESS TABLE (Updated Oct 29, 2020)
For All cases, always install the
linux-firmwarepackage. This will always be up-to-date with the latest Broadcom drivers along with other binary files that could be needed depending on the driver PCIID.Special Case #1 - Uses
bcmaandbrcmsmacdriver combination. Required firmware is installed by default in the packagelinux-firmware.Special Case #2 - For the ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 the steps are:
sudo cp brcmfmac4366c-pcie.bin /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4366c-pcie.binsudo nano /etc/rc.localadd modprobe brcmfmac and savesudo rebootIn hardware like the Lenovo S10-2, if your wireless card gets stuck trying to connect to an SSID (keeps trying to connect), then the alternative to get it working would be to install the
bcmwl-kernel-sourcepackage (Remove any other installed packages related to it). Read the Debugging section below for more information regarding this wireless device.IMPORTANT NOTE - After September 2014, if you follow this answer and still you have problems installing the correct driver, please try the
firmware-b43-installerpackage and thelinux-firmwarepackage and notify us via comments. There were some changes and some drivers will only work with this package. Remember to have a clean system before installing it:In some particular cases, after installing the
firmware-b43-installeryou need to remove the b43 module, enable it again and even proceed to unblock with rfkill:If you have a Broadcom card that has a different pci.id, please ask a new question. Once solved, the solution will be added to this howto.
4. Installing the Package (offline)
4.1 Installing
firmware-b43-installerTo install
firmware-b43-installeroffline see this answer.4.2 Installing
bcmwl-kernel-sourceFor cases where you need to install
bcmwl-kernel-sourcebut you are offline, here is an excellent answer about it. But basically follow this steps:sudo dpkg -i *.deb. This will install all packages in that folder. If it gives any errors, read the error and follow the steps it mentions.To give an example, after going to point 1 mentioned above, If you had the Broadcom
14e4:43a0, you would search for thebcmwl-kernel-sourcepackage and after selecting the corresponding Ubuntu version (In my case 16.04 or Xenial) I would land on the following page:http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/bcmwl-kernel-source
On this page I would select the corresponding architecture (32 or 64) but would also need to download the 3 package dependencies mentioned on that page as seen in the following image:
After downloading all packages and dependencies, you can proceed on copying all packages to a single folder and running the
dpkgcommand as mentioned on step 4 above.NOTE
In some computers, before performing the commands, you will need to deactivate the Secure Boot Options in your BIOS. This applies for cases, for example, where the bcmwl-kernel-source is already installed but the driver does not yet work. You can do a reinstall like so, or disable Secure Boot by going to your BIOS Setup:
DEBUGGING
The following information is additional material to read about solving various issues related to Wireless Management and conflicts with other Network devices. Know that it some cases you need to have an updated Kernel version, since each new version of the Kernel introduces either new Network drivers, improvements over existing drivers or solves bugs regarding them.
Before reading the points mentioned below, be sure to have all repositories enabled on your Ubuntu system. To check, run on the terminal
software-properties-gtkand make sure all options on the Ubuntu Software Tab are enabled.Make sure the Wireless card is not hardware disabled. For example on some laptops you need to press Fn + F2
To configure your wireless devices through the terminal I recommend How to connect and disconnect to a network manually in terminal?
If your connection drops every so often some users have suggested to set IPv6 to Ignore. Just go to Network Manager (The network icon on the top panel). Click on it then select Edit Settings. Then go to the Wireless connection you are using, select it. Now go to the last Tab in there that mentions IPv6 Settings. In the Method field select Ignore.
If your laptop does not detect your wireless card some users have mentioned that using
rfkill unblock allwill solve the problem. Others simply turned the WiFi switch on their laptops off and then on again (Physical switch available on this laptops). For more information aboutrfkillplease read rf kill unblock all DOES NOT WORK!If you are getting b43-phy0 ERROR: Fatal DMA error / b43-phy0 warning: Forced PIO do the following:
If it works then add it to you RC files so it is executed every time you boot. You can change PIO to 1 if you need to it.
If you are having a Required key not available when installing a DKMS module (Like Nvidia, Broadcom or others) you can go to Pilot's Answer Here
If your wireless card see/not see the router and gets stuck in an endless "Trying to connect (Try 1/3)" loop the solution might be proper configuration of your router or wireless SSID device.
For all Wireless cards in general, it is very important to also take into consideration the network devices you are using (Routers, Switches, Wireless Channels and Wireless Bands, etc..). With this information you will be able to evaluate better what the source of the problem could be when you arrive at a dead end. An example would be the Lenovo S10-2 which uses the 14e4:4315 rev 01 PCIID. Even after installing the correct driver the user would end up in a "trying to connect" loop. It would see the wireless SSID but when trying to connect to it, it would enter an reconnecting loop.
The solution was that this particular wireless device did not support 40 Mhz channels nor does it support 802.11N. The router in that case was actually broadcasting with a forced 40 Mhz and on WiFi-N only. When the router was set to Auto mode and 20/40 Mhz Channel, the wireless card worked correctly. This is a case scenario that also repeats in other cases, so a proper evaluation of the network equipment would help a lot.
For cases where you get repeated:
ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_station : Wrong Mac address...
when doing a
dmesgand your wireless connection drops often (Several times an hour or a day), the issue here might be that you are inside a wireless signal that is used as a Wireless Bridge (2 Routers sharing the same SSID and connection). This can happen with modern Routers that have the ability to extend the wireless connection by offering the same SSID. your wireless connection might drop because you might be between both routers and the signal strength between both is almost the same.If your connection drops very often, it means you are almost in the middle of both router devices. To lower or eliminate the dropping rate of your wireless device, try to position yourself where your wireless card can see only one router or at least one of the routers has a higher signal strength than the other one.
There are also some techniques to force the wireless device to only connect to a specific router by setting the BSSID to the MAC Address of the router you wish to connect to. This will force your wireless device to ONLY connect to it.
Secure Boot Issues
On some specific scenarios, installing the drivers, be it in offline mode through various DEB packages or through apt-get with internet access, will not work if Secure Boot is not disabled.
This is because the access needed is denied by Secure Boot so the drivers will look like they are installed correctly when in fact the did not. So for VERY specific cases, you will need to temporarily disable Secure Boot in order for the drivers to work.
Linux Firmware Update
On other cases looking for and installing the latest Linux Firmware would solve the issue. Either solving minor problems that were happening with a working card or making the card work for the first time.