Before we get started
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 the pci.id. To find out which one you have, open the terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+T (It should open a window with a blank background) and inside the terminal we run the following command:
You will get something like this:
Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter [
14e4:4320] (rev 03)
The pci.id in this example is 14e4:4320 as seen inside the [...]. We will also need the revision version (if it appears) for some special cases. In this case it is rev 03 as shown inside the (...) at the end. So what you will need at the end is: [14e4:4320] (rev 03)
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, we go down the list to the one that shows the exact same pci.id. if you were in Ubuntu 12.04 you would install the firmware-b43-installer package. If you were in 14.04 or 14.10 you would also install the firmware-b43-installer package.
NOTE - 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, you will need to undo them in order to follow this guide. We assume you are doing this from scratch and have not changed the configuration files, modules or drivers in the system in any way (apart from updating it).
For example, if you previously installed the bcmwl-kernel-source package, you will need to remove it by using the purge method:
Code:
sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source
If you have just installed Ubuntu, you will need to build an index of available packages before we can install your driver:
Code:
sudo apt-get update
Now use the pci.id you found in the grid below to find the method to install your driver. This applies with all cases, except as noted. The installation procedure is done in terminal and while connected to the internet with a temporary wired ethernet connection or USB modem or whatever means possible:
Code:
sudo apt-get install <package>
And then reboot.
Code:
pci.id 12.04 LTS 14.04 LTS and Later
14e4:0576 Special case #1 Special case #1
14e4:4301 firmware-b43legacy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
14e4:4306 firmware-b43legacy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
14e4:4306 rev 2 firmware-b43legacy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
14e4:4306 rev 3 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4307 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4311 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4312 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4313 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4315 firmware-b43-lpphy-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4318 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4319 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4320 rev 02 firmware-b43legacy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
14e4:4320 rev 03 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4324 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4325 firmware-b43legacy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
14e4:4328 bcmwl-kernel-source firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4329 bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:432a bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:432b bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:432c bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:432d bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:4331 firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-installer
14e4:4353 Special case #1 Special case #1
14e4:4357 Special case #1 Special case #1
14e4:4358 bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:4359 bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:4365 Special case #2 bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:43a0 unknown bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:43b1 unknown bcmwl-kernel-source
14e4:4727 Special case #3 Special case #1
Special case #1: This device uses the driver combination bcma and brcmsmac. It shouldn’t be necessary to install anything at all. Required firmware is installed by default in the package linux-firmware. In a few cases, it is necessary to blacklist b43 and ssb:
Code:
sudo -i
echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit
In some cases, blacklisting ssb will disable your Broadcom ethernet card. Post a new question for help.
Special case #2: Probably only working in 64-bit only. See: http://askubuntu.com/questions/17510...stro-3460-3560
Special case #3: Use bcmwl-kernel-source for kernel version less than 3.8; check with the terminal command: uname -r. For kernel versions 3.8 and later, use brcmsmac. Also see Special case #1.
If you have a Broadcom card that has a different pci.id, please ask a new question. Once derived, the solution will be added to this howto.
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