How do I install wifi driver/firmware?
The wifi driver in my MacBook10,1 (MY2017 intel 12" macbook) which has a BCM4350 wifi chip.
Picture below
I'm trying Bazzite and Bluefin each on this and trying brcmfmac driver, but only 2.4ghz wifi works. (asking here since Bazzite is largest)
How would I add 5ghz support? Logs indicate the driver is searching for and failing to load text files and blobs.
88 Replies
all drivers are included in the kernel
if it doesn't work ootb you may need to know what is your wireless card
it should just work out of the box
Wifi didn't work out of the box, I had to
modprobe brcmfmac or edit some modprobe.d files to use that driver over broadcom-wl, and then i got 2.4ghz wifi, but that is super slow for daily use. There's a github issue about the ujust script not working for the broadcom-wl driver, so that's why I manually edited those files. Again I'm looking to get 5ghz working.ujust configure-broadcom-wl installs broadcom drivers, does that + removing modprobe confs not work?
I don't think so, this guy found that the script effectively doesn't work. I can try again but I am pretty sure I observed the same behavior: https://github.com/ublue-os/packages/issues/274
GitHub
Incorrect broadcom driver in use · Issue #274 · ublue-os/packages
The problem: On a fresh install of Bazzite, I had to run modprobe brcmfmac on every boot to get my wifi to work. I tried ujust configure-broadcom-wl with both enable and disable to no avail. The ca...
Update: Yeah even when using the script the kernel logs via dmesg still show the brcmfmac driver at work.
Ty for informing me. I have a mac that works only with wl, I can test and maybe fix the script
If you have modprobe overrides, wl may fail to load before b43 or other drivers
Yeah so on my mac, regardless of the presence of the files in that github issue I seem to always be running brcmfmac
Right now I think my modprobe.d doesn't have modifications.
I could re-install the entire OS if need be to get a fresh state
Blacklist the driver
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_module#Blacklisting
Alright I put
blacklist brcmfmac in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wl.conf
OK, that put me in airplane mode it seems ⤴️lspci -k plsLOL sorry, it's 002:00.0 2nd from bottom I think
Does modprobe wl work?
let's seee
I mean does the command run successfully
Or modinfo wl
modprobe wl does fail with FATAL: ... module not found in directlryt....
lets see on modinfoThat will also fail
yeah it failed, not found it said
I'll run the ujust on my vm
modinfo wl works on my VM and I did nothing, wut
Doesn't explain why modinfo wl fails
Which image are you on?
lets see
This is on bluefin stable
Oh I'm on bazzite
see the fastfetch in the pic, it's the latest version, updated today
I can install bazzite
Yes do that, it includes the drivers
I had it before and same issues, I hope it's the same because we both have that ujust base
hmm OK
Does bluefin really have the ujust configure-broadcom-wl but not the actual drivers?
Hmm not sure
It doesn't have the drivers
well I just blacklisted them
Blacklist should not affect modinfo
I just don't know if the output before means that, sounds like you do 🙂
ok good to know thank you
I disabled wirh ujust, let's see if modinfo will work
Blacklist prevents the driver from being selected afaik
Yes still works
modinfo wl works
ok gonna wipe and bazzite this thing!
Wipe? No need, just rebase
I thought I couldn't rebase across DE's or something?
Bazzite has both gnome and kde
yeah i was just thinking
OK i'll try that
It's booting
lets see the ujust rebase only works within each project
so gonna look this up
Rebase Guide - Bazzite Documentation
Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices.
Yeah you know this is probably the image I should use, it's like 18:1 people on bazzite it just helps for debugging this. Maybe once I nail down the cause I can migrate back to bluefin
The cause is bluefin flat out doesn't have the driver😂
If u really want bluefin you can try layering the driver rpm or making a custom image
Yeah I'll just not autoload steam for now.
reboooooootin!
But I wish there was a distro as focused at user convenience as bazzite
about to get more purple in here
Your desktop will stay the same
Well Bluefin is Jorge's setup, so my expectations are low for him catering to exactly my needs
lol then i make it more purple :bazzite:
ok that was just the ostree, now i'm rebooting
i see bazz logo on the LUKS login
nope it made itself purple with no user intervention 🤣
OK well it's now booted and I have wired internet, but no wifi shows up in the system settings of gnome
lspci -k again(ty wired network)
so there's wl in there
Use the ujust to enable wl
No driver is loaded atm
ok
my brcmfmac is still blacklisted by me
gonna reboot
TBH i've never rebased before and that was one of the coolest things ever
Doesn't matter, we want wl
Are you a contributor?
I appreciate the help here, this is awesome
No I'm not
lspci is the same output
I joined the discord and was like oh my god the devs are good
Huh, still no wireless where a user would find in gnome UI
so lets dmesg
Is there no
kernel driver in use: wl?
Load it manually: sudo modprobe wldmesg has a large error, trying to screenshot it
Soo it's warning me about the STA driver
modproble wl now
that doesn't seem to work,
sudo modprobe wlAre you using secure boot
Yes
Umm. Wait no
I don’t think this laptop supports, secure boot
LUKS yes
Oh yea it doesn't support
So my hdd is encrypted but it’s too old for secure boot
Reboot & try again
yeah might just power off and see if it resets the wifi chip in some way
ah yes i did see that this morning
Now what's the fedora equivalent of this...
That's what I was thinking! I think maybe it's some rpm-ostree thing or initramfs or some such thing we're generally advised to avoid if possible
Im restarting from battery nothing plugged in after power off
hmm i wonder if i need to sudo modprobe broadcom-wl
modprobe needs sudo
sudo modprobe broadcom-wl
Yeah sorry I've been not mentioning sudo but always doing it afaik, errors otherwise
i'm gonna try broadcom-wl now
ok it's not in there it seems
it says module not foundNo wait it is sudo modprobe wl
Not broadcom-wl
right, that also didn't work
i'm now on to trying the latter, wl didn't seem to do anything
I could try editing grub i guess, maybe a karg?
What happens when you run sudo modprobe wl?
no output, i assume that's good
but also no wifi appears in gnome settings
sudo rmmod wl && sudo modprobe wl
no network interfaces
Run this
ok, just ran that, seems like the same thing
Yeah it seems like the same behavior as before
Disable wl, remove other driver's blacklist, reboot
yeah
no idea what's going on here
so I am gonna un-blacklist brcmfmac and blacklist wl
via that same modprobe.d file
rebooting
ok no wifi, let me check lspci -k
lspci -k lists
brcmfmac, wlsudo modprobe brcmfmac
ok, that made wifi pop up in gnome settings instantly
my guess here is it's gonna be 2.4ghz only
Yeah it's got credentials in there from before and is connected at 2.4ghz
Can't you see any 5g access points?
Also are the firmware load messages still there?
gnome settings says 2.5/5g supported, but I think that's just data coming during dhcp or wifi auth
let me turn off my 2.4 and see
ok, 2.4 is off, and now it's spinning in the gnome UI
Yeah it spins in the gnome UI and then I get a gnome popup that says connection failed
Gonna forget the network and try again
So i don't think it can even see 5ghz SSIDs.
the most damning thing here is this dmesg line:
the
device may have limited channels bit
So it's kinda full-circle. brcmfmac kinda works for 2.4. I wonder if this could be as simple as no regulatory domain or something.
Seems like we need those blobs etc.
ha wait no, it says its getting my reg domain from my timezone, so that isn't it probably