On 10/02/2024 at 12:48, Exeonz wrote:
I'm trying to install debian bookworm 12.4 on MacbookAir7,2 that doesn't have an ethernet port and the installer doesn't recognize it's wifi card and what drivers it needs for the card to work. From searching the web I found that it uses Broadcom BCM 4360 wireless network adapter and requires broadcom-sda-dkms firmware drivers to function. The installer doesn't detect the wifi card and none of the drivers from the select list work and when I use 2nd bootable USB formatted as FAT32 with broadcom-sda-dkms firmware drivers saved to root and firmware folder it doesn't accept drivers and gives out error "ethernet card not found"
broadcom-sta-dkms contains neither binary drivers (kernel module) nor firmware but only source files to build the kernel module (wl). Debian does not provide this driver as a binary module. Building a kernel module requires kernel headers, gcc, make... neither of which are available in the Debian installer environment.
Could you please shed some light on how I can possibly install debian on this macbook air.
Get a supported USB network adapter (about any USB-ethernet adapter should be) or do an offline installation from a DVD, Blu-ray or 16G installation image. Once you have a running system, you can install broadcom-sta-dkms and other required packages and build the wl kernel module.