How to use a BCM4311 based wireless chip with SLED11

This document (7004503) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11

Situation

A laptop with BCM4311 based wireless LAN chip was installed with SLED11 but the device cannot connect to a wireless network.

Resolution

Before the device can be used the firmware needs to get installed. For this, openSUSE 11.1 offers a package called b43-fwcutter which provides a script ('install_bcm43xx_firmware') that will download and install the appropriate firmware for the device. Unfortunately, this package is not available on SLED11 but can be downloaded from http://software.opensuse.org/search?baseproject=SUSE%3ASLE-11&p=1&q=b43-fwcutter.

The package can be installed using the command

rpm -Uvh b43-fwcutter*rpm

To update the firmware, run as root the command

/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

Afterwards reboot the system to have the hardware completely reinitialized. Using the Network-Manager applets available, you should be able to connect to wireless networks.

Please note that this information is based on user reports. As the b43-fwcutter RPM is not shipped with SLED11, SUSE Technical Services does not support this package.

Additional Information

The above solution was discovered using:

Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

26: PCI 300.0: 0282 WLAN controller
[...]
Model: "Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN"
Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
Device: pci 0x4311 "BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN"
SubVendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
SubDevice: pci 0x0465

Please see http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 for more information.

Disclaimer

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