Re: Selecting the appropriate driver for Broadcom wifi cards

Just discovered one more thing. Installing broadcom-sta-dkms creates this file:

/etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-dkms.conf

which blacklists b43 (which must be why the wl driver gets chosen), but also blacklists other drivers like b44, which my research shows is required for some ethernet cards.

So, the slightly more general question is, how do we create a live image that supports the broadest possible set of ethernet and wifi cards without the user having to do anything (and we're willing to use non-free)?

Thanks,
Corey

On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Corey Velan <corey.velan@fixmestick.com> wrote:

In my live configuration, I have enabled non-free and added these packages
broadcom-sta-dkms
b43-fwcutter
firmware-b43legacy-installer

firmware-b43-installer

So, I end up with both the wl and b43 drivers installed. So far so good.

I'm not sure how the OS decides which driver to use, but on some PCs, it loads, e.g. the wl driver, but that driver doesn't work, so I try to unload the wl driver using:

> sudo modprobe -r wl
with the intention of then loading the b43 driver using
> sudo modprobe b43

But, the wl driver can't be unloaded. I get back this error from the first command:

Module wl is in use.

Are there any thoughts or code on how to get the OS to pick the best wifi driver or else override the choice? There are numerous wifi drivers for Broadcom cards- e.g. see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Broadcom_wireless- and I'm wondering how to get maximum coverage without the user having to do anything.

Thanks,
Corey

Corey Velan
Co-founder
514.220.8207
corey.velan@fixmestick.com
www.FixMeStick.com