Broadcom B43 driver help please - 32bit

[gpsblake]

Can not for the life of me get wifi or debian to accept the broadcom b43 drivers... I do not have access to ethernet

System spec: Atom N270 processor, 32 bit, 16gb flash drive.. It's an HP Mini, 64 bit is not an option

I can get it running on ubuntu 18.04 and it's children like Linux Mint doing the following from the home folder on terminal

sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter_019-2_i386.deb
tar xfvj broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o
sudo modprobe b43

It also works out of the box on distros based on debian like Antix and Mx Linux

However, debian just doesn't want to accept that deb file...
Am I doing something wrong that stock debian just doesn't understand..

Thanks...

[p.H]

How are we supposed to help if you do not show any error message ?

[wizard10000]

Those things have an Ethernet jack - why not just enable non-free and plug it into the router?

I had a (Compaq-branded) HP Mini 110 back in the day with the same processor.

Anyway, here's The Debian Way - https://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx

OT, but I threw that Broadcom 4312 (I think) card in the garbage and replaced it with an Intel card. Not recommended here, though - as HP whitelists the PCI ID of their OEM wireless cards. The thing refused to boot until I found a hacked BIOS with the whitelist removed.

[stevepusser]

Try booting the live session of MX, running quick system info from the menu, then copying and pasting the Networking stanza from that in your next post so we can see how it's working there.

[gpsblake]

My apologies for the late response, work ya know..

1) Ethernet does not work on my HP Mini anymore...

Here is the cut out from MX Linux where wifi does work out of the box

Code: Select all

System:    Host: <filter> Kernel: 4.19.0-16-686-pae i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: quiet splasht nosplash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 
           Distro: MX-19.4_386 patito feo March 31  2021 base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Mini v: F.05 serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 361A v: KBC Version 02.12 serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: 361A0 Ver. F.14 date: 06/10/2009 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 22.4 Wh condition: 22.4/26.6 Wh (84%) volts: 12.4/11.1 
           model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Single Core model: Intel Atom N270 bits: 32 type: MT arch: Bonnell 
           family: 6 model-id: 1C (28) stepping: 2 microcode: 218 L2 cache: 512 KiB 
           flags: nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 bogomips: 6383 
           Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/1600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 798 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds status: Not affected 
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected 
           Type: spectre_v1 status: Not affected 
           Type: spectre_v2 status: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:27ae 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: intel unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1024x600~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 945GME x86/MMX/SSE2 v: 1.4 Mesa 18.3.6 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:27d8 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-16-686-pae 
Network:   Device-1: Broadcom Limited BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard U98Z049.00 Wireless Mini PCIe Card driver: wl v: kernel 
           port: 0400 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:4315 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Marvell 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: N/A 
           port: ec00 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 11ab:4354 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 134.52 GiB used: 22.6 MiB (0.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: pSSD 16GB size: 15.27 GiB block size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: <unknown> serial: <filter> rev: 4.46 
           scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Glide size: 119.25 GiB 
           block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1.27 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: N/A size: 1.54 GiB used: 22.6 MiB (1.4%) fs: overlay 
           source: ERR-102 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 896.0 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap swappiness: 15 (default 60) 
           cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 32.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 172 Uptime: 2m Memory: 1.96 GiB used: 287.4 MiB (14.3%) Init: SysVinit 
           v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 Shell: quick-system-in 
           running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36 

[wizard10000]

Ethernet does not work on my HP Mini anymore...

Tethering an Android device would also work if you have one available.

I really loved my Mini - it ran my network backups and acted as a DLNA server for many years. I even took it to India on a business trip back in 2013

[p.H]

According to your reply it seems that MX uses the "wl" non-free driver for the wifi controller. This driver must be built from source with the package broadcom-sta-dkms in Debian.

[gpsblake]

Thanks for your response, I just ended up installing MX Linux based on debian, and then slapping LXDE on it, and then tweaking and switching out software.

[stevepusser]

According to your reply it seems that MX uses the "wl" non-free driver for the wifi controller. This driver must be built from source with the package broadcom-sta-dkms in Debian.

Eeennhhh....not really. MX ships with that DKMS package already installed and the driver built and available, but it is possible for a compiled driver deb to be built on another Debian install on bare metal or even virtualized, as long as it's running the same kernel as the target machine. Then you just need to have module-assistant and broadcom-sta-source installed, and run the m-a commands to prepare the machine for module builds, then build the driver into a deb that'll end up in /usr/src. From there, sneakernet can transfer it to the isolated machine. That wl driver also needs broadcom-sta-common installed, that can be downloaded by any OS from packages.debian.org.

If you already had a Debian LXDE install tailored to your liking, MX allows you to preserve your home folder on install, so you could have kept it.

[p.H]

Eeennhhh....not really. MX ships with that DKMS package already installed and the driver built and available, but it is possible for a compiled driver deb to be built on another Debian install on bare metal or even virtualized, as long as it's running the same kernel as the target machine. Then you just need to have module-assistant and broadcom-sta-source installed, and run the m-a commands to prepare the machine for module builds, then build the driver into a deb that'll end up in /usr/src.

How is that contrary to what I wrote ?