Broadcom wireless: wifi driver BCM43142

Discussions in English on installing or upgrading Fedora
#1

In previous Fedora versions back to the late fc20s it was necessary for me to build the Broadcom wifi driver BCM43142 by compiling it as "hybrid_wl then adding it to the kernel using modprobe wl. This process mimicked the same techniques as upgrading the VMware driver.
DMESG output: eth0: Broadcom BCM4365 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 6.30.223.271 (r587334)

I reviewing the fc33 it now states that the Broadcom wifi is now supported by Fedora but it states it might require additional downloads. This statement is concerning because believe it or not some Internet users (me) have been wireless for a few years and have no cable for backup. Therefore, installing fc33 then needing to download additional files makes upgrading more difficult as I would need to download the additional files through a smartphone and use USB to get these files back to the Fedora host.

Before, upgrading I would like more details of the upgrade and kernel loading of the Fedora developed Broadcom drivers. Maybe I can download these files before upgrading and have then local to install after the upgrade.
Thanks for any advice you can offer.

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#2
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#3

@shagagy

Remember, it’s not enough to download the kmod-wl rpm from rpmfusion beforehand and then install it. It will come with a bunch of dependencies that are required

dnf repoquery --requires --resolve kmod-wl shows only akmod-wl but if you check the dependencies for akmod-wl, you will see

akmods-0:0.5.6-26.fc33.noarch
bash-0:5.0.17-2.fc33.x86_64
broadcom-wl-0:6.30.223.271-15.fc33.noarch
elfutils-libelf-devel-0:0.182-1.fc33.i686
elfutils-libelf-devel-0:0.182-1.fc33.x86_64
kmodtool-0:1-41.fc33.noarch

and then dependencies for akmods:

[...]
gcc-0:10.2.1-6.fc33.x86_64
grep-0:3.4-5.fc33.x86_64
gzip-0:1.10-3.fc33.x86_64
kernel-debug-devel-0:5.9.10-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-devel-0:5.9.10-200.fc33.x86_64
kmodtool-0:1-41.fc33.noarch
make-1:4.3-2.fc33.x86_64
rpm-build-0:4.16.0-1.fc33.x86_64
rpmdevtools-0:9.2-1.fc33.noarch
[...]

Some will be part of the default install, others aren’t, so that won’t make you happy. If you can plugin a usb wifi dongle that is supported by the kernel (intel chipset) or using an ethernet connection would make things much easier! How about tethering with your phone?

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#4

Thanks for the heads up. I was able to enable both Bluetooth tethering and USB tethering on a tablet and bring up an Internet connection on my laptop that will be upgraded. Since both Bluetooth and Wifi are both Broadcom based neither may work after the upgrade. But, I do think the USB tethering will work after the upgrade.

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