[x86-64] LE 12.2 is missing the Broadcom-wl WiFi driver completely

    I am one of the "lucky few" who have a broadcom wifi card that works better (if not only) with wl. This is the card in question

    Code
    02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]

    Up until 11, wl was correctly auto selected and the card was working with no extra work

    Code
    02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n
       Subsystem: Dell BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n
       Kernel driver in use: wl
       Kernel modules: wl, bcma

    On 12.0, NONE of the two was auto selected, so I got no network interface at all


    So I blacklisted bcma, like so

    Code
    echo "blacklist bcma" >> /storage/.config/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf


    and on next boot, wl made it work



    On 12.2 though, wl does not even exist as driver or option, so there is no way to make it work

    The outputs above are from the generic-legacy images for 12.0.2 and 12.2.0, booted in "run mode". Also note that bcma, supposedly, supports the card

    Code
    # modinfo bcma | grep 4359
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004359sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

    p.s. I also use wl on debian unstable x64 that is the regular os on that laptop, but it is on 6.12, so I can not tell if it compiles or not on 6.16. Hopefully, now that the freeze for debian 13 is over, unstable will move to 6.16 soon and I will know. On that system, I had used b43 the first couple of days, but it has a lot of issues, thus the move to wl.

    Edited once, last by jim_p (August 21, 2025 at 9:46 AM).

    If a better patch becomes available, will it be readded? There is no b43 btw, neither in 12.0.2 nor in 12.2.0.

    Code
    # modinfo b43
modinfo: ERROR: Module b43 not found.

    I wanted to see if anything has changed in 12.2 on the "bad" cooperation between connman and iwd.

    iwd and connman are synced up to that of LE13.

    Correct there is no b43 in LE12/13. I don’t see the wl driver returning in LE with “patches”, the decision to drop it was only made after the inability to obtain working patches across multiple kernel releases, and lack of support (community) - lots of reading and research done in the PR and issue, with references to the issue.

    The wireless positive with LE12.2/13 is the now available upstreamed rtw88 wireless.

    The day has come! 6.16 just reached debian unstable and wl can not be built for this reason.
    Debian Pastezone

    Is it the same for le too? I am now checking how other distros deal with it.

    I do not really want to quit le about that, so I thought of changing the wifi card. But it is hard to find something that matches the port on the laptop and the available height for it.

    p.s. Thanks for adding "x86-64" to the title, but the "missing the wifi driver completely" is wrong. Other wifi drivers are there, only wl is missing.

    Quote from jim_p

    Is it the same for le too?

    IIRC the breakage occurred earlier than Linux 6.16 but there were no patches to be found anywhere when it occured and we waited a while before moving to drop the driver. As exorcising external drivers with no hope of ever moving upstream has been a long-term initiative, even if patches for 'wl' did appear now, we have no plans to reinstate support. Sadly the 'b43' driver is not in great shape either and we're a little surprised it's not been purged from the kernel due to its equally unmaintained state; hence why we didn't enable that as a replacement.

    There likely will be a patch to compile wl_cfg80211_hybrid.c. But the kernel will continue to BUG() every boot on the outdated binary Broadcom blob.