Wireless BCM4312 with the 3.10, 3.11, 3.12 and 3.13 kernels

The hybrid driver from Broadcom was updated again in September (2013) with all the previous patches and a few other fixes as well. This brings them up to support linux kernel 3.9, which is very much welcome.

Sadly it breaks again with >= 3.10 with many warnings and errors which isn't good considering that Ubuntu (13.10) Saucy Salamander is about to be released.

We do have a patch for you though that gets us working again up to the 3.11 kernel.

Chipsets supported by "Broadcom’s IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n hybrid Linux® device driver" are: BCM4311, BCM4312, BCM4313, BCM4321, BCM4322, BCM43224, BCM43225, BCM43227 and BCM43228.

The error you will run into:

bcurtis@Aria:~/Workspace/wl.orig$ make KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/uname -r/build M=pwd make[1]: Entering directory /usr/src/linux-headers-3.11.0-11-generic' CFG80211 API is prefered for this kernel version Using CFG80211 API LD /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/built-in.o CC /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/shared/linux\_osl.o CC /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.o /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c: In function ‘wl\_tkip\_printstats’: /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3246:7: warning: passing argument 1 of ‘wl->tkipmodops->print\_stats’ from incompatible pointer type wl->tkip\_bcast\_data); ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3246:7: note: expected ‘struct seq\_file \*’ but argument is of type ‘char \*’ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3249:4: warning: passing argument 1 of ‘wl->tkipmodops->print\_stats’ from incompatible pointer type wl->tkipmodops->print\_stats(debug\_buf, wl->tkip\_ucast\_data); ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3249:4: note: expected ‘struct seq\_file \*’ but argument is of type ‘char \*’ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c: In function ‘wl\_reg\_proc\_entry’: /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3470:2: error: implicit declaration of function ‘create\_proc\_entry’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration] if ((wl->proc\_entry = create\_proc\_entry(tmp, 0644, NULL)) == NULL) { ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3470:22: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast if ((wl->proc\_entry = create\_proc\_entry(tmp, 0644, NULL)) == NULL) { ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3475:16: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type wl->proc\_entry->read\_proc = wl\_proc\_read; ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3476:16: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type wl->proc\_entry->write\_proc = wl\_proc\_write; ^ /home/bcurtis/Workspace/wl.orig/src/wl/sys/wl\_linux.c:3477:16: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type wl->proc\_entry->data = wl; ^ cc1: some warnings being treated as errors make[2]: \*\*\* Error 1 make[1]: \*\*\* Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory/usr/src/linux-headers-3.11.0-11-generic' make: *** Error 2

The rundown:

1. Download the 32 or 64-bit version: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
2. Download the patch: wl_3.10.patch
3. Extract the sources: cd ~/Downloads; mkdir -p wl; cd wl; tar xf ../hybrid-*.tar.gz
4. Patch and compile the sources: patch -p2 < ~/Downloads/wl_3.10.patch; make; sudo make install; sudo depmod; sudo modprobe wl

Give Ubuntu a few seconds after loading the "wl" kernel module, then eventually the Network Manager will start looking for wireless networks.

TL;DR: These patches are required for a working wl kernel module for the 3.10 and 3.11 kernel series.

Update (2014-04-22): Known to also work with Raring (14.04) that uses the 3.13 kernel.