MacBook Air - no wifi, no joy....

[Subito Piano]

Hi all -- not sure if this should go here in the FossaPup forum or the "Users" forum...anyway.

Fossapup booted right up in a 2013 MacBook Air A1466, but no wireless card was recognized. Hunting for an answer, I found that the card is a Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.61.2 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1305.8). It seems it should work with the b43 or b43 legacy drivers included in FossaPup, but as I mentioned, no go. I did read about a conflict with some of these. Also, according to this post, "Broadcom 4360 actually comes with either of two distinct chips, 14E4:4360 and 14E4:43A0. There is no driver in Linux for the first one, while wl is an appropriate driver for the second one." Hmm...I couldn't tell which I have.

I tried downloading b43-fwcutter -- it seems to be made to extract what Puppy already comes preloaded with (the b43 drivers, regular and legacy). I tried the b43 firmware linux module updated by pemasu.

Now, I tried a Deb-based distro and it had no issues connecting via wi-fi. So my question is four-fold:

• Any ideas where can I get the driver I need?

• Can I somehow get the driver from the Mac OS?

• How do I copy the working driver from the Deb-based distro that worked and install it in Puppy so it's automatically recognized by the Network Setup?

• Is there a Windows driver I can get easily to use with NDISWrapper?

Of course, answering any one of these should solve my issue.

As always, thanks! Work is hectic, so I probably can't reply quickly....

[rockedge]

You might be able to adjust the kernel version or modules.....once you know what driver works on the Debian based stuff.

[ozsouth]

@Subito Piano - this may help: viewtopic.php?p=34408#p34408 (Gal 6:10).

[bigpup]

Sorry have to ask.

I assume it has a switch to turn WIFI on/off. Most laptops do.
So try using this switch to turn WIFI off/on.

[BologneChe]

Sorry have to ask.

I assume it has a switch to turn WIFI on/off. Most laptops do.
So try using this switch to turn WIFI off/on.

No button to activate wifi on this MacBook. Activation from macOS.

[BologneChe]

Hi @Subito Piano
Personally, I was unable to use the wifi of my iMac 2013 under Bionicpup64. I have had success with EasyOS Dunfell by adding the Broadcom driver from the distribution repository. It's a simple sharing that I do and I hope you find a solution for your MacBook

[Subito Piano]

Excellent! I will try these...

...maybe.

It turns out our resident photographer/graphic arts/photography person needs the Mac...!!! So IDK if she will end up keeping it or if it will return to me.

C'est la vie.

[n-at-han-k]

Apologies for reviving such an old thread but I've just purchased a Macbook Air 2017 myself and run into issues with the Broadcom wifi card on F96-CE_4.

lspci reveals

Code: Select all

Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

On bookwormpup it's a simple matter of installing the WL driver using the broadcom-sta-dkms package.

However F96-CE_4 seems some come with a different kernel to the ubuntu repo and the broadcom-sta package won't compile.

NEVERMIND! I have found a solution.

I was playing about with slackware15pup and managed to get the WL driver to install using the official slackbuild. I wondered if this would translate over to an ubuntu puppy, and it did!

I used the latest version for slackware 15 found here:
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0 ... oadcom-wl/

Install it just the way you would in slackware and off you go.

[ozsouth]

@n-at-han-k - Welcome. Just in case useful - I had made a Broadcom wl driver for F96-CE4 - is here:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/axjuoixz ... p.pet/file

[n-at-han-k]

Now that would've saved me a lot of headaches!

[RalphC]

Hi all -- not sure if this should go here in the FossaPup forum or the "Users" forum...anyway.

Fossapup booted right up in a 2013 MacBook Air A1466, but no wireless card was recognized. Hunting for an answer, I found that the card is a Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.61.2 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1305.8). It seems it should work with the b43 or b43 legacy drivers included in FossaPup, but as I mentioned, no go. I did read about a conflict with some of these. Also, according to this post, "Broadcom 4360 actually comes with either of two distinct chips, 14E4:4360 and 14E4:43A0. There is no driver in Linux for the first one, while wl is an appropriate driver for the second one." Hmm...I couldn't tell which I have.

I tried downloading b43-fwcutter -- it seems to be made to extract what Puppy already comes preloaded with (the b43 drivers, regular and legacy). I tried the b43 firmware linux module updated by pemasu.

Now, I tried a Deb-based distro and it had no issues connecting via wi-fi. So my question is four-fold:

• Any ideas where can I get the driver I need?

• Can I somehow get the driver from the Mac OS?

• How do I copy the working driver from the Deb-based distro that worked and install it in Puppy so it's automatically recognized by the Network Setup?

• Is there a Windows driver I can get easily to use with NDISWrapper?

Of course, answering any one of these should solve my issue.

As always, thanks! Work is hectic, so I probably can't reply quickly....
The MacBook Air is a fantastic device, but without WiFi, it can quickly become a source of frustration. Many users rely on stable internet connections for work, study, and entertainment, so connectivity issues can be disruptive. A common fix includes troubleshooting network settings, but sometimes a complete reset may be necessary. If you're facing persistent issues, you might want to try https://moonlock.com/factory-reset-macbookto restore your MacBook Air to its original settings. This solution often resolves connectivity problems and brings back the joy of a seamless, fast MacBook experience

good question