BCM4311 Network controller on debian like systems

This is a quick post of how to get the Broadcom BCM4311 wireless card working on debian based systems ( ubuntu , *ubuntu , etc ).

BCM4311 is a descent wireless adapter used in many laptop computers. The thing is that many times it just does not work right after an installation and I am tired of trying to figure it out ( searching for that one debian packet I need to apt-get install ) every time, hence this post.

First of all this is the adapter I am talking about:

# lspci | tail -1
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

You should see at least that much with an lshw:

# lshw -C network
  *-network               
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list

To fix it for good do:

$ sudo -s
# apt-get update
# apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
# apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source
# shutdown -r now

Once your computer comes up you should be able to use your wireless interface.

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:7d:61:8e:ab  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Note: the one above is not my Mom's neither Nick's MAC. It is made up.
I am sorry if it's yours.



BCM4311 Network controller on debian like systems