BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Help with setting up network cards, including WiFi cards.
Grenouille
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Location: Europe

BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by Grenouille »

Hello,

I can't get my Wi-Fi working... I have a BCM43224 card. Is there any way to get it work ?

I found the package "b43-fwcutter" in the software manager so I installed it. Can I use this software to get the correct driver ?
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ericbsd
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by ericbsd »

That one will be complicated a bit Broadcom is not well supported on FreeBSD, but it will change in 11.0. But by default all the driver are not enable in the kernel, but it can be. What boot manager are you using Grub or FreeBSD Boot Loader?
Grenouille
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Location: Europe

Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by Grenouille »

I'm using GRUB.
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ericbsd
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by ericbsd »

b43-fwcutter is a tool which can extract firmware from various BCM43xx drivers.

To make the wifi card work if it is supported you will need to add these.

Code: Select all

echo 'kld_list="bwi"' >> /etc/rc.conf

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echo 'kld_list="bwn"' >> /etc/rc.conf

Code: Select all

cd /ports/net/bwi-firmware-kmod
make install clean

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cd /ports/net/bwn-firmware-kmod
make install clean
Reboot after if the driver is supported you should be able to have The card working.
Grenouille
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Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2015 6:44 am
Location: Europe

Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by Grenouille »

I cannot install the drivers : it tells me that it requires kernel source files in /usr/src. How can I get them ?
Roben
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Joined: Thu Aug 25, 2016 6:31 am

Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by Roben »

Grenouille wrote:I cannot install the drivers : it tells me that it requires kernel source files in /usr/src. How can I get sizegenetics from scottmcadams.org then?
Hi Grenouille, I get the same message. If you found the location of the files can you post here? Thanks dude.
Last edited by Roben on Wed Apr 26, 2017 9:42 am, edited 3 times in total.
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ericbsd
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by ericbsd »

This is were the source(src) is, the tar file is /usr/src make sure you untar in / not in /usr.
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/relea ... 3-RELEASE/
Also I command that you install GhostBSD 10.3 RELEASE.
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MintSpider
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by MintSpider »

Grenouille wrote: Sun Nov 15, 2015 6:59 pm I cannot install the drivers : it tells me that it requires kernel source files in /usr/src. How can I get them ?
According to https://forums.ghostbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=1626 :
ericbsd wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 1:20 pm Basicaly yes, but you need to use GhostBSD src. You can install the src package.

Code: Select all

sudo pkg install src
Scotsman in Kentucky
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MintSpider
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by MintSpider »

I have the same Broadcom BCM43224 card in my Alienware M15x A08
inxi spec =

Code: Select all

[peter@max /usr/home/peter]$ sudo inxi -Fz
Password:
System:    Host: max Kernel: 12.1-STABLE amd64 (64 bit) Desktop: MATE 1.22.2  OS: FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE
Machine:   System: Alienware product: M15x v: A08
           Mobo: Alienware model: N/A Bios: Alienware v: A08 date: 08/24/2010
CPU:       Cores: 8 model: Intel Core i7 Q 740 (-SMP-) cache: N/A speed/max: 1729/1730 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GT216M [GeForce GT 240M]
           Display Server: X.org 1.20.8 driver: nvidia tty size: 144x35 Advanced Data: N/A for root
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio driver: hdac
           Card-2 NVIDIA GT216 HDMI Audio Controller driver: hdac
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82577LC Gigabit Network Connection driver: em
           IF: em0 state: active speed: 1000baseT duplex: full-duplex mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n driver: none
           IF: none7 state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 476.9GB (0.6% used) ID-1: ada0 model: ST9500420AS D005SDM1 size: 476.9GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 449G used: 17G (4%) fs: ufs dev: /dev/label/rootfs0
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.68GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/label/swap0
RAID:      Device-1: no raid: zfs-no-raid components: N/A
Sensors:   This feature is not yet supported for BSD systems.
Info:      Processes: 115 Uptime: 4 mins Memory: 1215.0/8133.4MB Client: Shell (sudo) inxi: 2.2.31 
Followed ericbsd's rc.conf, bwi, & bwn instructions as well as installing src from pkg
All of that went well.
However, after I reboot and login the Mate desktop locks up after 10-20 seconds.
Not even TTY is accessable and the machine has to be shutdown by the power button.
Upon booting up again, I have to go into a TTY first to edit rc.conf and comment out the bwi & bwn lines in order to boot into the desktop.

Willing to try any suggested methods or commands from this point on.
This is a testing laptop, so let's test!
Scotsman in Kentucky
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MintSpider
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Re: BCM43224 Wi-Fi Card

Post by MintSpider »

For the next 4 hours, I crashed then reinstalled GhostBSD a couple of times.
On these crashes when went to edit rc.conf in the TTY to comment out the bwi and bwn lines there was a line of characters at the end of the file. Just removing that line crashed the system upon rebooting again.
Going to reinstall one more time and wait for instructions.
Otherwise I am enjoying testing out GhostBSD and this process itself is a great learning curve.
Scotsman in Kentucky
Solus, Peppermint, & GhostBSD User
BDLL Tester
Believer in Jesus Christ
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