HELP! Broadcom wifi adapter not working: How do I install drivers?

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jryan0858
Posts: 2
Joined: 2015/11/19 15:56:42

HELP! Broadcom wifi adapter not working: How do I install drivers?

Post by jryan0858 » 2019/05/17 17:05:24

Total newb: I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop running the latest version of 64-bit Centos 7. It has a Broadcom 4311 wireless adapter built in.
The Broadcom website has linux drivers for it in the form of a .tar.gz. When I extract it, it results in a "lib" folder, an "src" folder, and a "Makefile" text file. How do I install this driver and get my wifi to work?

I'm using a USB wifi adapter to connect to the internet on that computer.

I've looked all over for a solution and no luck! Any help will be greatly appreciated!

bonedome
Posts: 201
Joined: 2017/04/22 08:11:04

Re: HELP! Broadcom wifi adapter not working: How do I install drivers?

Post by bonedome » 2019/05/20 09:48:14

Hello
follow these instructions for centos 7 https://elrepo.org/tiki/wl-kmod :D

ron7000
Posts: 162
Joined: 2019/01/15 20:00:28

Re: HELP! Broadcom wifi adapter not working: How do I install drivers?

Post by ron7000 » 2019/05/20 18:20:16

at broadcom.com i searched on 4311 and was able to download "hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271.tar.gz" and that has a src/ and a lib/ and a Makefile.

What you got in this case is the driver source code you need to compile and install. It should be easy.

Notice in Makefile it has "MDEST_DIR = $(KBASE)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless"
It will basically install the necessary files under /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
what you need to do is this:

Code: Select all

tar -xf hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271.tar.gz
{ will create a hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271 folder having lib and /src/ and Makefile }
cd hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_271 
make all
make install
{ be in the current directory when you run [i]make[/i] which will execute Makefile
 
If this is a "kernel module" type of driver then what will happen whenever you do a centos update and a newer kernel version is reinstalled you would lose the wifi driver (kernel module) and then need to then reinstall this wifi driver.

that could be handled by using the elrepo rpm if they have the driver (like they do with nvidia graphics drivers) so you don't have to worry about a centos kernel update nuking your wifi drivers, or also install DKMS (dynamic kernel module support) which is available from EPEL. I am not too keen on dkms other than i install dkms (yum install dkms) then install nvidia (cuda_10.1.105_418.39_linux.run) and everything is trouble free... you would want to yum install dkms prior to doing the above make install.

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