How to install Broadcom bcm43602 Drivers on Ubuntu Linux

linux-ubuntu-install-wifi-drivers

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt update
sudo update-pciids
sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer
sudo reboot #note that this will restart your computer
sudo iwconfig wlp3s0 txpower 10dBm
#sudo iwconfig wlp2s0 txpower 10dBm

Hi @RetepV will this be feasible on Ubuntu 24.04? I previously tried it and rolled back to SierraOS on my MacBookPro 2017.
Suffice to say, I was unable to make it work, including the Type-C USB LAN converter I connected to the Mac.

I'm interested in your insight before I try it again.

@tikg I have Ubuntu 24.04 running on my Macbook Pro 2016, with i7 processor. If in Macos, you go to Apple
Menu->About This Mac, you will see info on your Mac. There is the button ‘System Report’, click that.

In the System Report, click Hardware, you’ll get some info on your Macbook. In my case, amongst others:

• Model Identifier: MacBookPro13,3
• Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel i7

In the list on the left, find the entry Wi-Fi under Network, and click that.

You will now see info on your Wi-Fi chip. In my case, amongst others:

• Card Type: Wi-Fi (0x14E4, 0x15A)
• Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.111.1 AirPortDriverBrmcNIC-1710.4)

This means that my MacBook has a Broadcom BCM43-type Wi-Fi chip. If your MacBook also has a ‘BCM43xx’ chip, you should be able to make it work.

When Installed Ubuntu 24.04, my Wi-Fi chip was detected and Linux had installed drivers. I could list Wi-Fi access points, but not connect, so the chip was properly detected and the original driver worked. I did not have to update the drivers.

In my case, all I had to do was to open a console window and type this:

sudo iwconfig wlp3s0 txpower 10dBm

After that I tried to connect again, and my Wi-Fi worked flawlessly, until a reboot. Then I would have to do this again to get it to work. This setting is not persistent.

So, to prevent having to type the same again, after reboot, I created the set-wifi-power.service, like I showed a few posts earlier. And now Linux automatically sets the Wi-Fi transmit power to 10dBm at boot time.

The only other thing of note is that you need to know the name of the Linux driver. For some people it seems to be wlp2s0, for me it was wlp3s0. You can list your wifi devices with this command in a console window:

iwconfig

This will return some info on wireless devices. There you should see an interface with the name wlpXsY. On my system it says wlp3s0, on other systems it might be something different. I only have one system, so I can’t know what other systems will use.

In Linux, you can also get the exact type (instead of just BCM43xx, like Macos shows) of the Wi-Fi controller chip by typing this:

lspci | grep -i network

In my case that shows that my Macbook has a BCM43602 (rev 02) Wi-Fi controller.

So, all I can say more is that with this configuration, I have Wi-Fi running flawlessly, and that I expect that if your system is similar, you should get it to work too.

I also expect that the exact Wi-Fi chip type is not even really an issue, any BCM43xxx chip will probably work and benefit from this fix.

Here’s a picture showing what I mentioned in my previous posts:

To be honest, I’ve chosen to now connect via a wired network, as that’s a 1Gb/s network and much faster.