Arch Linux

zaphod4

Member

Registered: 2024-04-01

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] wlan0 does not show up

Hi everybody,
I'm new to ArchLinux distro and GNU/Linux world at large. I installed ArchLinux with KDE Plasma, everything seems to work fine but after the first reboot I can connect to internet only via ethernet as I'm doing right now.

wlan0 does not show up.

$ ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: ens9: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 18:7e:b9:02:6b:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

I'm using a mac book pro (late 2012) with a broadcom

$ lspci -k | grep -A 2 -i network
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme
        Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge

NetworkManager service is enabled

$ systemctl is-enabled NetworkManager.service
enabled

if I try to list nearby Wi-Fi networks I get nothing in response.

$ nmcli device wifi list

Before posting I reviewed similar issues posted here and elsewhere on the net but I couldn't figure out what I need to fix. Any hint would really be of great help.

Thank you for your time

Last edited by zaphod4 (2024-04-02 17:03:07)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,015

Re: [SOLVED] wlan0 does not show up

Probably install https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … oadcom-wl/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom - welcome to hell

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zaphod4

Member

Registered: 2024-04-01

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] wlan0 does not show up

Hi seth,
thanks a lot for the useful hints. I'll try to install broadcom-wl and I'll read the Broadcom page on the wiki. I'll post here the outcome. It has been great to be in this kind of hell so far

Bye

zaphod4

Member

Registered: 2024-04-01

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] wlan0 does not show up

Hi seth,
thanks a lot for pointing me in the right direction. Now my wi-fi conection works perfectly.

For other Newbies, like me, I'm going to delve into details about what I did because I found frustrating coming across similar issues where the requester just writes back "It works" never providing any details on how actually the issue ha been fixed.

I detected the exact name and version of my Broadcom wireless network device

$ lspci -vnn -d 14e4:

on page https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom for my specific device ID it is suggested the b43-firmware but it is also stated that broadcom-wl ... for a more stable experience.

So I installed this package:

$ sudo pacman -S broadcom-wl

Then I turned off b43 and turned on the newly installed package

$ sudo rmmod b43
$ sudo modprobe wl

I rebooted the system and, as if it was a kind of magic, my wi-fi showed up and I could easily connect.

There is a downside in all this, if I understood correctly. This firmware might break after complete update of the system. So these instructions will still be useful for me in few months from now to recover from a possible failure.

One last thing. Maybe in the process reported here I did some unnecessary stuff. Still not completely sure of what I'm doing here :-) but after all this little odyssey it worked for me.

Once again seth, thanks a lot.
Bye