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SiskonMakkaraSoppa123

Member

Registered: 2025-03-04

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] MacBook with Broadcom network card not connecting to internet

EDIT:
The pretty unorganized steps to solve the problem are in the first and second reply to this post. Some things to keep in mind to are as following:
Do you have the broadcom-wl package? Install it in a live environment (second reply, text after emoji)
Do you have multiple networking services on (NetworkManager, wpa_supplicant, iwd)? Disable excess ones.
Keep in mind to rmmod and modprobe wl after rebooting and restart iwd before using iwctl.
Are you connected to a network but don't have network access? Use dhcpcd (at least that worked for me)

Hi! I got an oldish MacBook Air (A1466, 2017) a few days ago and decided to convert it into a Linux machine. I managed to install Arch on it (surprisingly), but now I have a problem with Wi-Fi. The laptop doesn't have an ethernet port and I don't have access to an adapter. I kinda need internet access for literally anything I'm about to do, so any help on the subject is appreciated

Info on the problem:

Laptop has a Broadcom network controller, and it has problems with connecting to Wi-Fi if not on MacOS. I got it to work on the live environment, but I cannot get it to work on the final install. I cannot proceed with the installation, as everything related to pacman (GUI, web browsing, gaming, etc.) are not available to me. I have the broadcom-wl-dkms package, but I am not sure if I have everything configured properly. I cannot find help in Arch Wiki or from other posts.

IMPORTANT!!! As I have no internet access, I have no IP to SSH into my machine. It's going to take a long time to type out /etc/fstab or command results, so I'd like to know better alternatives. TY in advance!

Laptop specs:

BCM4360
i5 CPU, so x86_64 architecture
NO T2 CHIP!!

I really don't know if NC is the correct place for this post, but this IS my first installation that hasn't (yet) gone horribly wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong somewhere and please ask questions (I can probably find you the answer).

Last edited by SiskonMakkaraSoppa123 (2025-03-09 09:46:55)

ntb314

Member

Registered: 2025-02-13

Posts: 27

Re: [SOLVED] MacBook with Broadcom network card not connecting to internet

Hi!
I also had the same problem with a MacBook Air 2013, but eventually got it to work. However, I used an Ethernet adapter for the installation and then installed the Broadcom-wl package through that.

Since you mentioned that you have the broadcom-wl-dkms package installed, I would double-check if it's correctly loaded by running: "lsmod | grep wl". Another way to check is if the dkms package is installed: "sudo pacman -S dkms" or you can try loading the driver manually: "sudo modprobe wl"

Another good way to look for errors is to check if NetworkManager is running: "sudo systemctl status NetworkManager"  if it’s not running, you can try enabling and starting it: "sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager"

If the driver isn't correctly loaded, or if you're encountering other issues you probalby need to install the driver manually You can do this by downloading it on another machine and transferring it to your MacBook using a USB drive or an SD card etc. Once transferred, you can install it with: "sudo pacman -U /path/to/your-driver.pkg.tar.zst"
Then, try loading it manually again with modprobe.

I hope this helped you out!
Cheers!

SiskonMakkaraSoppa123

Member

Registered: 2025-03-04

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] MacBook with Broadcom network card not connecting to internet

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

After a Tallinn visit, I can finally finish my little project. Everything went uphill after unloading and loading wl and starting NetworkManager. I had a problem with connecting to a network (Operation Failed) and this thread adviced to only use one network service (which gives me a pass to be on NC), and after a bit fiddling around with restarting iwd, connecting to a network and pinging 8.8.8.8, advice in my situation was to try dhcpcd, which worked first try. I really don't know what I would have done without your help. THANK YOU!!!

A point I have to make though is that I had installed dhcpcd in the live environment before, so it made my life easier. If someone is in the same situation, you'll have to boot into a live USB, mount your filesystem, connect to internet (easier said than done) and download the software. Same goes for anything needed, like drivers, packages, etc.

one more thing: thank you