NOTE: this page is for archival only, see the note at the end of the page.

b43 and b43legacy

The b43 drivers (bcm43xx in mainline kernels, b43 and b43legacy in wireless-dev) are drivers for the 802.11 B/G family of wireless chips [http://broadcom.com/products/Wireless-LAN Broadcom] produces.

TableOfContents(1)

caveats

All Broadcom chips require firmware that is loaded onto the wireless chip before it can operate. [#firmware See below].

There are also USB devices based on Broadcom chips, these are not supported at all!

supported

  • bcm4303 (802.11b-only chips)
  • bcm4306
    • all newer revisions supported (built after about Jan 2005)
    • old revisions partially supported. Lacks some features like hw-crypto.
  • bcm4311 rev 1 / bcm4312
  • bcm4318

unsupported

  • The 802.11a part of the 4309 and 4312 is not supported.
  • bcm4311 rev 2
  • There is no support for any Draft 802.11n features.

available devices

Please see the ["/devices" device list].

features

working

  • Station mode
  • Access Point mode (although not tested very well).
  • Ad-Hoc (IBSS) mode
  • Monitor and Promisc mode.
  • "Monitor while operating" and multiple monitor interfaces.
  • In-Hardware traffic de/encryption (relieves your CPU).
  • LEDs to signal card state and traffic.
  • In-Hardware MAC address filter.
  • Probably something we forgot to add here.

not working yet

  • Interference mitigation.
  • Bluetooth coexistance (most code implemented, but untested)
  • Probably something else that's not listed under "Works".

Anchor(firmware)

device firmware

The Broadcom wireless chip needs software that runs on the wireless chip itself during operation. This software is called "firmware". Currently only Closed Source firmware is available, that must be extracted from Broadcom's proprietary drivers. The driver files containing the officially supported b43 firmware are:

You must extract the firmware out of these proprietary driver files by using the "fwcutter" tool. There are currently two versions of the tool, [http://linuxwireless.org/download/bcm43xx/fwcutter/bcm43xx-fwcutter.tar.bz2 bcm43xx-fwcutter] for the bcm43xx/bcm43xx-mac80211 driver and [http://linuxwireless.org/download/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter.tar.bz2 b43-fwcutter] for the new b43 and b43legacy drivers.

Please note that the firmware from the binary drivers is Copyrighted by Broadcom Corporation and must not be redistributed.

related tools

external links


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