This Works for fedora 17 ,18, 19 and 20. It may also work for earlier versions.
When I installed my first Linux OS, i.e. Kubuntu 11.10, I found that my wifi didn’t work. I could not find a solution. Now after installing Fedora 17, I figured how it is done. I got help from a fedora forum and most of the information here is from that forum.
NOTE: In Fedora 19 and above, I noticed that if I add the Russian Fedora Repo and then update the system, Wireless Drivers automatically gets installed and after restarting the system it works properly. This may work for you too. If this short method doesnt work, please proceed with the following steps.
First We need to figure out the chipset of the wireless device
Type the following code in the terminal
lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i "network"
check your wireless chipset number and the kernel driver in use with the following
lspci
|
Any of these listed?
4301
4303
4306
4309
4311
4312
4318
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
Yes No
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ 4310?
/ / \
/ / \
/ Yes No
b43 / \
loaded? / 43XG
/ \ ndiswrapper 4313,43224
/ No 4321,43225
/ \ 4322,43227
/ \ 4328,43228
Yes b43legacy / \
/ loaded? / \
/ / \ Yes No
/ Yes No / \
/ / \ / \
4306? / \ broadcom-wl 4320?
4311? Install 4311? (from lsusb
4318? version 3 4312? or other means)
/ \ firmware / \ / \
/ \ / \ / \
Yes No Yes No Yes No
/ \ / \ / \
/ \ / \ / \
b43-openfwwf Install broadcom-wl ndiswrapper b43-openfwwf ndis-
or version 4 or wrapper
Install firmware rndis_wlan
version 4
firmware
How to install b43, b43legacy, version 3 or version 4 drivers
- Install b43-fwcutter. This is the software package that does the extraction of the firmware from the proprietary driver. I was able to solve my friend’s problem with this step only.
su yum install b43-fwcutter
- I further googled to see for other versions of the b43 driver and found the following in a fedora forum.
- Do this step only if you need to install version 4 firmware for the b43 driver module. Copy and execute the following command lines one after the other in a Fedora terminal.
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver su b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o
- Do this step only if you need to install version 3 firmware for the b43legacy module.
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o su b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
- Now reboot your system
How to install broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver (broadcom-wl)
This is the driver problem I personally faced. I followed the following steps
- First we need to add the RPM Fusion repositories.
For this we can directly go to the webiste RPM FUSION REPOSITORY
Or you can also type the following commands in the terminalsu -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm' su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'
- Once you have upgraded the rpmfusion free and non-free release in your system then update the system using the following command.
sudo yum update
- Once you have updated, you can install the broadcom-wl driver using the command
sudo yum install kmod-wl
- Now reboot the system.
How to install ndiswrapper driver
- First we need to add the RPM Fusion repositories.
For this we can directly go to the webiste RPM FUSION REPOSITORY
Or you can also type the following commands in the terminalsu -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm' su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'
- Once you have upgraded the rpmfusion free and non-free release in your system then update the system using the following command.
sudo yum update
- Once you have updated, you can install the ndiswrapper driver using the command
sudo yum install kmod-ndiswrapper
- Now reboot the system.
I hope that these techiques will do the job.
Tech World 
Please approve me
Great….
it worked
Thanks a lot man. a loooooot. u save my day. I have been switching between linux distros to find the best, finally settled in fedora 23. But then comes wifi network slow problem, which is not in any of other distros i installed, i have been searching on net for a solution, finally you saved me, thanks a lot, May Allah bless you
As a newcomer to Linux I would just like to say a big thank you, I was having a problem with an old Compaq 6175b with the Broadcom 4311 card and have installed Fedora 22 on it. I followed your instructions and the card is working perfectly. Thanks again from a very satisfied newcomer to the linux party
Thank you very much!! Great post. Hope it’ll help others. However, here the solution for Centos 6 http://thisismynota.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-install-broadcom-bcm43142-wifi.html
Thanks a lot buddy, this saved my lot of time.
I’m having some problems setting up my wireless card. Can you offer any suggestions?
I’ve got an HP Pavilion tx 1000 running a fresh install of Fedora 20. I tried adding the Russian Repo and rebooting and that didn’t work, so I tried the manual process.
# lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
Kernel modules: ssb
So BCM4321 (vers 3) means I want “broadcom-wl”, right?
I installed the RPM Fusion Repositories and did the “yum update” and then installed
the kmod-wl package.
[root@localhost ~]# yum update
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
No packages marked for update
[root@localhost ~]# yum install kmod-wl
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Package kmod-wl-6.30.223.141-5.fc20.28.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do
I’ve tried this a few times – it all seems to work without errors and it all seems to be installed correctly…
Here’s what I’ve got in my blacklist.conf
[root@localhost ~]# cat /usr/lib/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf
# modules blacklisted for broadcom-wl
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcma
blacklist b43
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist b43-pci-bridge
I still have no recognized wifi devices.
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
enp0s20 no wireless extensions.
lo no wireless extensions.
I’m stumped. This page seemed like the most helpful advice I’ve found, but I still can’t get it to work. It worked previously under Fedora 18, but I did a completely fresh reinstall when I loaded 20.
I’ve got to be missing something obvious, or doing something stupid, but I can’t see what it is.
Any help would be appreciated.
Can you tell me the kernel version you are using ? You can check that using “uname -r” command.
I have the same Wireless Adaptor(BCM4321) as you have and currently in the latest kernel above 3.14.9, the rpmfusion guys havent released any update for the wireless driver.
So you can either wait for the update to come or try installing kernel 3.14.9.
install this kernel
3.14.9-200.fc20.x86_64
but i am very doubtful that this kernel is still available in the repository
All went well in Fedora 20 in my Dell inspiron 1525. All wireless connections shown. But when i tried to connect any of the network it asks for password and then showing “connecting….” some time after it returns to previous state. im sure that the password is correct. how i can get over this issue??
I have the same laptop as yours. I didn’t get such an issue. Try changing the wifi password and retry. Reply what happens..
These instructions worked for me on a Dell Inspiron 1420. I followed them immediately after a fresh install of Fedora 20 on that machine. As an aside, WiFi just worked without any complication for a fresh install of Fedora 20 on an HP DV6500. As a newbie, I have to wonder how it can be so simple on one machine and so complicated on another.
Broadcom didn’t release their drivers for their WiFi’s until late recently so it is a troublesome process in installing it. I hope fedora will include the drivers in their repository so that it would be much simpler in installing(it might even get installed automatically 😉 ).
Hi
Following is my system config:-
[root@localhost ~]# lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device 0611
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 07)
I am trying to setup the wifi based on your above instruction but It is not working although ‘ndiswrapper driver’ is properly installed on my system.
Please look into the issue and help me out.
Hi I will appreciate any help with my problem with wifi.
I have recently got acer aspire R7 572g. And I love this machine. However, I do have a problem with wifi connection. Ofcourse that is a broadcom wifi card. I just installed Fedora 20:
$ lspci -vnn | grep Network
Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]
By looking at the above list I installed broadcom-wl driver, and I removed all others.
and I found that in /usr/lib/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf
I have
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcma
blacklist b43
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist brcmfmac
Any help will be appreciated
The broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf file will contains the cases where two or more modules both support the same devices, or a module invalidly claims to support a device: the blacklist keyword indicates that all of a particular module’s internal aliases are to be ignored.
What’s your problem? I wasn’t able to understand clearly. Please repost your query and I would be happy to help
Hi thanks for interest.
I can not get any respond from my wifi adapter.
1) when I try
$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
enp0s20u3u4 no wireless extensions.
2) with rfkill I manage to unblock softwer blocade for wifi
rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: acer-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3) From broadcom webpage I used kmod-wl driver
4) when I run
$ modprobe wl
modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found.
I still can not get any respond from my wifi card.
Continuing with the earlier message, I am getting error while doing “sudo yum update”.
Pl help
I found out that there was dependency issue, and hence I did the following:
su –
yum clean all
rpm –rebuilddb
yum update
This resolved the issue and then I installed the broadcom-wl driver through the following command:
$sudo yum install kmod-wl
After doing the above, and rebooting, I still do not have the wireless network working.
(by the way, the wired metworking always works)
Regards,
Shyam
you don’t need to install broadcom-wl as b43-bridge is already loaded in your system. You need to install “version 4 firmware”. Follow the instructions given above (endtitled “How to install b43, b43legacy, version 3 or version 4 drivers”) to install the version 4 firmware. I hope this works. 🙂
After updating RPMfusion, I did
$sudo yum update
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Error: Cannot retrieve metalink for repository: fedora/19/x86_64. Please verify its patha nd try again
This is a newly installed fedora 19 on Dell Inspiron 64-bit.
$lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.lib/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
I googled it out and found different solutions to this particular problem.. Try each one of them and tell me which one worked :
1. Check if you have DNS configured. If you can’t ping google.com (or some other public host), because it doesn’t resolve, add DNS1=”8.8.8.8″ (google public dns, or your local dns server) to
/etc/syconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (or whatever your interface name is).
2. connect your device immediately to the network and then do the first “sudo yum update “. You maybe using a proxy. Follow the post given here
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/cannot-retrieve-metalink-for-repository-fedora-with-yum-after-fedora-15-upgrade-894793/
Very good instructions, everything worked well after the restart. Great job, thanks.
Dude thanks a lot. After 2 days of trying different things and almost giving up i found ur post and everything worked. Thanks a lot ur the best!
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E330
great work man…you are my superhero. it was nightmare to solve without your help…!got it working in my dell inspiron 3421
Hi may I know how you get it to work on dell inspiron 3421? I have the same model with broadcom 43142 but still cant get the wifi up. thanks.
This is an excellent article. Thanks
it helped me
which directory we install these?
these all will get installed automatically. you don’t need to provide any specific directory settings
# lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM4312 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
And I am using Fedora 17 ( 64 bit )
I believe you need to add b43-pci-bridge to your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file.
Then run
sudo update-initramfs -k all -u
then reboot
Then Try Installing The Driver mentioned in my post.
Try this and let me know.
wl is not able to download, how can i install ?. please help me
# sudo yum install kmod-wl
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
No package kmod-wl available.
Error: Nothing to do
did you add the rpm fusion repo ?
please also mention the result of
and which fedora version are you using?
# lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM4312 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
And I am using Fedora 17 ( 64 bit )
awesome dude, thaks a lot!!!
i have 4062 intel chip set wht shud i do
please run the following command in the terminal and show me the output
lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i “network”
This worked great on my Compaq Presario C700 with the Broadcom 4311 chipset. The only minor issue I had was that my install did not have wget installed. Once I got it these step by step instructions worked like a charm. Thanks so much for this post!
That’s cool, but what if you need wireless to download the wireless driver? Is there any package out there in RPM which provide the wireless driver? Thnx
Check the rpmfusion website. You will definitely find it there.
Great help, worked immediately!
Oh.. i had done with your information. Great man!!!
amazing…. thanx
thanx its very helpful….
cool…….