openSUSE 12.3 - Best WiFi driver for Acer TravelMate 8372 (chip BCM43225) - my opinion

I had some trouble trying to use the integrated WiFi card.
Just a few words hoping to help somebody.

Laptop: Acer TravelMate 8372
WiFi card: Broadcom BCM 43225 802.11 b/g/n

There are three possibile drivers:

  • b43
  • brcmsmac
  • wl

The best one is the third.

Install these two packages:
broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-desktop
Don’t download and compile hybrid-portsrc_x86_64-v5_100_82_112.tar.gz from Broadcom web site (you’ll get errors and waste your time).
Blacklist b43 and brcmsmac in the file “/etc/modprobe.d/50-blacklist.conf”.

“brcmsmac” is also a good choice (but you need to install kernel-firmware package and blacklist b43). It lacks the ability to associate to a WiFi network with an hidden SSID (as far as I experienced).

“b43” is the worst. By default it is loaded and fails. You’ll need to google around and do different operations, but at the end you’ll certainly blacklist it.

IMHO.