SnipeOS

Tutorial

Install Broadcom wireless drivers

If your Broadcom Wi-Fi card is not working on SnipeOS 26.04, one command installs the available driver packages (including the proprietary STA driver for the common laptop chips). Prefer watching? See the Broadcom drivers video.

Video walkthrough

One command, reboot, then confirm wl with lspci.

Terminal
curl -fsSL https://snipebrowser.com/os/drivers/wireless/install-broadcom-64bit.sh -o /tmp/install-broadcom-64bit.sh && sudo bash /tmp/install-broadcom-64bit.sh

Open on YouTube · Hardware · Troubleshooting

Open a terminal and run one command

  1. Open the Snipe start menu (bottom-left).
  2. Go to System Tools, or Favourites if you keep QTerminal pinned there.
  3. Open the terminal (QTerminal).
  4. Paste and run:
Terminal
curl -fsSL https://snipebrowser.com/os/drivers/wireless/install-broadcom-64bit.sh -o /tmp/install-broadcom-64bit.sh && sudo bash /tmp/install-broadcom-64bit.sh

64-bit only. The script refuses to run on 32-bit systems. You must be on an installed SnipeOS system, not a live ISO session.

When prompted, enter your user password and press Enter. You will not see characters appear as you type (that is normal Linux behaviour, not a fault).

What the script does

The script runs seven steps:

  1. Fixes apt sources
  2. Enables the restricted and multiverse repositories and runs apt update
  3. Runs apt upgrade
  4. Installs build-essential, DKMS, and the correct Linux headers for your kernel
  5. Installs every available Broadcom driver package
  6. Unloads conflicting modules and loads the wl driver
  7. Restores SnipeOS patches

After the script completes, reboot.

After rebooting, verify the driver

Check that the Broadcom line is using wl:

Terminal
lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i network

You want to see Kernel driver in use: wl on the Broadcom line. You can also check DKMS:

Terminal
dkms status

Confirm that the broadcom-sta module shows as installed.

Note on Secure Boot

If Secure Boot is enabled, the wl module may fail to load with a key rejection error. Disable Secure Boot in BIOS/UEFI settings, or enrol the MOK key when prompted on reboot. See also Freeze before GRUB if firmware settings are already on your checklist.

Note on kernel 7.0

SnipeOS 26.04 runs kernel 7.0. There are upstream reports that broadcom-sta-dkms occasionally fails to build on kernel 7.0. After rebooting, run dkms status and check that broadcom-sta shows as installed rather than showing build errors.

If it shows errors, Wi-Fi will remain unavailable until an updated STA package is released. That is an upstream issue with the Broadcom driver, not a SnipeOS issue.

Supported chips (proprietary STA / wl)

802.11b/g (older cards)

  • BCM4311 (PCI IDs 14e4:4311, 14e4:4312, 14e4:4313)
  • BCM4312 (14e4:4315)
  • BCM4313 (14e4:4727)

802.11a/b/g/n (mid-generation)

  • BCM4321 (14e4:4328, 14e4:4329, 14e4:432a)
  • BCM4322 (14e4:432b, 14e4:432c, 14e4:432d)
  • BCM43224 (14e4:4353, 14e4:0576)
  • BCM43225 (14e4:4357)
  • BCM43227 (14e4:4358)
  • BCM43228 (14e4:4359)
  • BCM43142 (14e4:4365)
  • BCM4331 (14e4:4331)

802.11ac dual band (newer cards)

  • BCM4360 (14e4:43a0, 14e4:4360)
  • BCM4352 (14e4:43b1)

Also installed (open source helpers)

b43-fwcutter, firmware-b43-installer, firmware-b43-legacy-installer, and linux-firmware. These cover additional Broadcom chips including BCM4306, BCM4309, BCM4318, BCM4320, and various older BCM43xx cards not supported by the proprietary driver.

SnipeOS only (do not run elsewhere)

Important: This script is for SnipeOS only. Do not run it on vanilla Ubuntu, standard Lubuntu, or any other distribution.

Running it on a non-SnipeOS install could damage that system.

Not sure what you are running? Open a terminal and run fastfetch (SnipeOS identifies itself there).