Broadcom has released open source Linux Wifi 802.11n drivers

In a welcoming step, Broadcom finally released the the source code of its wifi (802.11n) Linux drivers under open source license. The source code can be found on the Linux staging-next tree at git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-next-2.6.git in the in the drivers/staging/brcm80211 directory. The open source drivers will support current chips (BCM4313,BCM43224, BCM43225) and it also acts as a framework to support future chips by Broadcom.

This can be considered as a significant move made by the company, as Broadcom chips are widely in use on laptops and netbooks in the market. Its competitor, Atheros, has already open sourced its drivers back in 2008, which in turn, made Atheros drivers much better supported on various operating system platform compared to Broadcom.

Previously, Linux users with Broadcom chip, have to rely on NDISwrapper utilities to enable the wifi functionality on their laptops.

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B43 broadcom linux driver supported chipset

Supported chipset for b43 Broadcom Linux drivers are :

  • bcm4303 (802.11b-only chips)
  • bcm4306
  • bcm4311 rev 2 / bcm4312 (needs patches for 2.6.24)
  • bcm4309 (only the 2.4GHz part)
  • bcm4318

and unsupported are:

  • BCM 4309 and BCM 4312 is not supported.
  • BCM 4328/4329

Please refer to this post, Ubuntu Hardy Heron : Wifi Broadcom Support with b43 driver for a guide to activate B43 Linux driver in order to use wifi function in your laptop.

Source : Ubuntu: Enabling Broadcom BCM43xx Based Wireless