Hello all,
I have a broadcom b43 wireless card, therefore I had installed the broadcom-wl packages using a cable connection after installation of Leap 42.2. Everything worked fine.
Now, after the latest kernel update (4.4.27-2.1 → 4.4.36-8.1) my wireless card disappeared.
So I went back to the system state before the update (btrfs + snapper = cool :)). I noticed that the broadcom-wl had been uninstalled and, instead, there is now a package called pullin-bcm43xx-firmware.
I re-installed broadcom-wl, did the kernel upate, and everything just works.
My question is just: What is the way things are supposed to be? Should broadcom-wl be replaced by pullin-bcm43xx-firmware (in that case, something’s going wrong), or do I need both (in that case, broadcom-wl shouldn’t be removed)?
pullin-bcm43xx-firmware is just a dummy package that downloads and installs the firmware that’s needed for the b43 driver.
Totally unrelated to broadcom-wl.
You do not need both.
And pullin-bcm43xx-firmware is actually only useful if you use the in-kernel b43 driver.
No idea why broadcom-wl had been uninstalled, maybe some conflict when installing the kernel update (e.g. because broadcom-wl had not been updated yet)?
b43 would be less problematic because it is included with the kernel.
To be able to tell whether b43 would support your device (in which case you could use it instead of broadcom-wl), you’d need to tell what it is exactly though.
It’s BCM43142.
I’m getting a bit confused. Before the kernel update, broadcom-wl was not installed, pullin-bcm43xx-firmware was, and wifi was working. BUT there is no such module “b43”. Not shown by lsmod, and modprobe b43 says “no such file or directory”.
So, you should keep broadcom-wl.
You may uninstall pullin-bcm43xx-firmware, but that doesn’t matter really. As I said it’s just a small helper package that makes it easier to download and install the firmware for the b43 driver. And that doesn’t harm even if you are not using b43.
I’m getting a bit confused. Before the kernel update, broadcom-wl was not installed, pullin-bcm43xx-firmware was, and wifi was working.
Now I am getting confused as well.
You wrote broadcom-wl was installed.
So it wasn’t?
BUT there is no such module “b43”. Not shown by lsmod, and modprobe b43 says “no such file or directory”.
If you use broadcom-wl, b43 will not be loaded.
But the module should be there, it is in 13.2 at least.
But if you use broadcom-wl, there’s no point trying to load b43.
And if not it should be loaded automatically, if it supports your card at least.
I did install it right after installing Leap 42.2 freshly. But at some point in time, it must have been removed. I don’t know how and when, I usually just let yast online update do its work in the background without asking me.
When I go back to the snapshot right before the last kernel update, I find broadcom-wl not installed, but pullin-bcm43xx-firmware. Nevertheless, wifi working.
Strange, but anyway, the solution is to use broadcom-wl, as my card is not supported by b43.