I got a fatal error with modprobe

**Drunk_Mexican** · 07-10-2009

I have a Broadcom Corporation BCM4309 802.11a/b/g (rev 02) I'm trying to get working with Fedora 11.

I ran

Code:

su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'

Then I did:

Code:

su -c 'yum install broadcom-wl'

and things went ok, then I

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# su -c 'modprobe wl'
WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/.
FATAL: Module wl not found.
[root@localhost ~]#

What did I forget to do? What did I do wrong? I had broadcom working fine on another laptop I had that was also running Fedora 11.

**Rubberman** · 07-10-2009

First, you don't want to install the driver - you need the firmware. Download and install the b43_fwcutter (firmware cutter) and firmware for the Broadcom chip set. Use the cutter application to extract and install the firmware on your system. The standard wireless driver will then be able to load the firmware for your wireless. This is a common issue, needing to install the firmware, but with the latest versions of Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, et al), the built-in wireless driver is just what you need. The only thing lacking is the firmware in most cases.

Go here: Drivers - Linux Wireless

From that web site:

Fedora 10 and 11 use the following commands:

Code:

su -
yum install b43-fwcutter wget

o when you are asked "Is this ok [y/N]:" answer "Y" (and press "Enter)
o Now you have installed b43-fwcutter tool for extracting firmware from windows driver and download tool called wget. Now you need to download windows driver.

Code:

wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

o Now decompress, extract and copy firmware to /lib/firmware directory.

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod"
b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware/ wl_apsta.o

**reed9** · 07-10-2009

The Broadcom wl driver doesn't work with all bcm43xx chipsets. I couldn't find mention of the 4309 being specifically supported.

As far as I know the following are supported

Code:

14e4:432b "Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller"
14e4:4329 "Broadcom Corporation BCM43XG"
14e4:4328 "Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n"
14e4:4315 "Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g"
14e4:4313 "Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 Ethernet Controller"
14e4:4312 "Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g"
14e4:4311 "Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN"
14e4:432d
14e4:432c
14e4:432a

So your best bet may be to use the b43 driver and download the firmware as Rubberman mentioned.

**Drunk_Mexican** · 07-12-2009

The b43 cutter didn't work either. NDIS Wrapper did though which is weird.

because the broadcom_wl worked with Debian on this same computer. O well, I'm just happy it works at all to be honest. Thanks for the input.

**Rubberman** · 07-12-2009

Well, at least you got it to work! You know that old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, find an expert and pay them to do it!"

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