Arch Linux

Riot777

Member

Registered: 2010-09-28

Posts: 2

New Open Source Broadcom WIFI driver, where to start?

Hello I want to install new Broadcom Open Source driver brcm80211 for my Broadcom BCM43225 WIFI card but I'm kinda confused where to start. First of all this driver is not available in Arch repositories nor AUR, so I guess there's only GIT way in which I'm not too much familiar. At the moment only Debian has this driver available in it's backports kernel but that is useless for Arch Linux user, except for the firmware loading instructions. So please help me, I have exported the whole 500MB+ git "next staging" tree, and now I would like to figure it out how to compile brcm80211 module and eventually use it with Arch kernel. Thanks in advance.

Last edited by Riot777 (2010-09-28 23:00:45)

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: New Open Source Broadcom WIFI driver, where to start?

I think the easiest way would be to compile kernel26-git or some equivalent. Drivers are closely tied to the kernel, Debian probably had to do some patching before backporting, so unless you have a list of said patches using the driver with your current kernel would be painful.

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foutrelis

Developer

From: Athens, Greece

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 705

Website

Re: New Open Source Broadcom WIFI driver, where to start?

I spent close to an hour shortly after it was added to the staging-next branch and managed to compile it against 2.6.35.4 (not sure about the .4 part however). Unfortunately, it wasn't especially stable and got some kernel oops on suspend. After that, I went back to using the wl module.

Recent changes don't look like they could have improved the stability of the driver by much, so I'd advise against using it for now.

With the above said, if you're feeling adventurous you can build the driver as follows:

0. Make sure you have the `base-devel' group installed, along with `kernel26-headers' (preferably version 2.6.35.6-2 as 2.6.35.6-1 had some issues) and `linux-firmware' 20100911-1 (the one in [core] doesn't contain the firmware files for brcm80211 AFAIK).
1. Grab just the brcm80211 directory from the staging-next branch by clicking the `snapshot' link on this page.
2. Extract the compressed tarball and then open a terminal inside the staging-next-2.6-x directory that gets created.
3. Change the Makefile a little by running `curl -s http://ompldr.org/vNW82NA/Makefile.patch | patch -Np0'. After that, run `make'.
4. Now, you should have the compiled module `brcm80211.ko' in the current directory, which you can copy into `/lib/modules/2.6.35-ARCH/updates/'. (Create the updates directory if it doesn't exist.)

I didn't test the above steps thoroughly and I'm not certain this is the correct way to build the driver. However, I believe it'll get you a working kernel module.

Riot777

Member

Registered: 2010-09-28

Posts: 2

Re: New Open Source Broadcom WIFI driver, where to start?

Thank you, I will check this.

Pierre

Developer

From: Bonn

Registered: 2004-07-05

Posts: 1,964

Website

Re: New Open Source Broadcom WIFI driver, where to start?

I have made a simple PKGBUILD using compat-wireless: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=42670

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