Networking

Tips And Tricks

Q:

How can I install drivers for my Broadcom BCM4313 wireless LAN Controller?

A:

First of all, verify the wifi card to be enabled by BIOS (at boot, F2 -> Advanced -> Onboard Devices Configuration -> Onboard WLAN -> Enabled).

Download lates driver from Broadcom website . To make your steps just like mine, put the downloaded file in /tmp/wifi . Extract it.

If your kernel version is major or equal to 2.6.37 like in my case, patch the driver:

Download the .patch file from the same site and put it in /tmp/wifi . Reach that folder with terminal and apply the patch with:

# patch -p0 < patchName.patch

It's time to compile. Type

# make

Check if any other driver for the same device is installed:

# lsmod | grep "b43\|ssb\|wl"

and remove it/them from kernel modules, for example:

# rmmod b43

# rmmod ssb

# rmmod wl

and put them (except wl) in blacklist for preventing them to be reloaded at next boot.

Now you can add your compiled module to kernel and setup your system to autoload the module each boot:

# cp wl.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless

# depmod -a

# echo "modprobe wl" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local