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Topic: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers? (Read 4266 times) previous topic - next topic
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How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

My laptop has a Broadcom BCM4360 wifi chip, and I need steps on how to set up drivers for this. It does not have an ethernet port, so I can't install with that. The Arch Wiki's instructions are very vague, and thay didn't solve the problem. I have used openSUSE and ArcoLinux in the past. Arco had the drivers preinstalled and on openSUSE, you had to transfer an RPM file on a USB. I couldn't find many useful instructions for Arch based distributions, though. Wifi worked just fine on the live environment, but when I restart, it stops working.

Thanks for the help!

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #1 –
What have you tried, what didn't work?

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #2 –
The ArchWiki says,
Quote
you will need to first install the base-devel group during installation. Then, use another Internet-connected computer to download linux-headers and the driver tarball from the AUR, and install them in that order.

I don't know how to install base-devel group during installation. I also don't know where AUR downloads are stored.

I also tried installing this: https://github.com/antoineco/broadcom-wl, but make isn't installed by default so it couldn't build.

I tried following this forum post: https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php/topic,1657.0.html, but most of the replies linked the ArchWiki page. Some of the replies did mention this: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/brcm80211#firmware_installation1, which I did not try, so I'll do that and get back to you.

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #4 –
So you haven't tried to just install broadcom-wl that is in the repos?

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #7 –
This or I guess you could use usb tethering

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #8 –
On the base install iso you can use basestrap to install packages to the mounted target, this is using the wifi on the iso. Presumably you could do this with other iso's too, although I haven't tried those. There should be instructions on the Artix wiki in the base install section. You can still reboot using the iso and mount your installation in a fresh session  and drop some extra packages in if you find you are missing something when you have previously completed and shut down. When I did an install recently I got it all booting OK but then found I had forgotten some wifi stuff and a terminal so just basestrap'd them in afterwards.

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: rdixitv – on

How would I do that without an internet connection?
I keep a USB wireless adapter on hand.  You can find them for sale at less than the cost of a typical USB thumb drive.  If you do a search on Amazon for "usb wifi linux", it will bring up many that are compatible and work with the current linux kernel.  A USB wifi device is great to have for rescue when the internal device isn't working for whatever reason.

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: strajder – on
For example, by downloading a package file (on a computer with Internet access, obviously) to a flash disk and doing
Code: [Select]
# pacman -U /path/to/package-file.pkg.tar.zst

How would you download a package to a file to move it onto a flash disk, though?

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: rdixitv – on
How would you download a package to a file to move it onto a flash disk, though?
Quote from: strajder – on
For example, by downloading a package file (on a computer with Internet access, obviously) to a flash disk and doing
Code: [Select]
# pacman -U /path/to/package-file.pkg.tar.zst

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #12 –
I am asking where you get the package files from. Like, if you run
Code: [Select]
# pacman -S broadcom-wl
, where does the actual file go?

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: rdixitv – on
I am asking where you get the package files from. Like, if you run
Code: [Select]
# pacman -S broadcom-wl
, where does the actual file go?
The file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist contains a list of URLs of mirrors. You fill in the value for $arch and $repo and go to the resulting URL where you have Internet access.

Usually on PCs $arch will be x86_64.
 

Re: How do I set up broadcom-wl drivers?

Reply #14 –
I went to a mirror close to me, and tried both the regular and the dkms version, but when I try to run pacman -U, I get an error saying some GPG key could not be looked up locally. I don't know much about this kind of stuff, so sorry if it is stupid.