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Old 03-19-2020, 06:43 PM   #1
LordAnta
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Question Slackware current - WiFi issues on Macbook Pro


Hello all,

It's been a while since I posted here.

I own a MacBook Pro Retina 13" early 2015 (A1502). Gotten tired of running Slackware in a VM and taking advantage of the current social distancing phase, I grabbed a Slackware 64 Current ISO image from 16th of March (thank you Alien Bob) and installed it on an external SSD that was laying around.

The install ran smoothly, no hick-ups until I tried to connect the WiFi.

The MacBook has an integrated Broadcom WiFi card BCM 43602 802.11ac [14e4:43ba] (rev 01).

iwconfig shows wlan0
iwlist scanning wlan0 - says the card does not support scanning.

Not being my first encounter with wifi issues under linux, I go to https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/...vers/brcm80211 to see the support of my card. Apparently it has kernel support since 3.17 but it requires some firmware files. I downloaded the archive, copied the contents of brcm directory to /lib/firmware and reloaded the brcmfmac module into the kernel and the status remains as before. The syslog does not say that something went wrong.

During research on the Google/DuckduckGo, people said that Ubuntu runs smooth. Grabed an Ubuntu 19.10 iso, burned it on a USB. After ubuntu boots, I see that the Wifi works smoothly. Copy the firmware directory, reboot in slackware, overwrite the files, load the kernel module -- nothing has changed. -- Quite weird

Ubuntu has Kernel 5.3.0 and Slackware current has 5.4.25.
lsmod shows that in slack the brcmfmac module has an extra dependency: mm_coreutil (or mm_core: writing from memory). -- Second quite weird

My question to people that have experience with Macbooks and Slackware:
Any advice on what should I try next?
Does Slackware compile the kernel in a special way?
Should I recompile a vanilla version of 5.4.25 or 5.5.10 and try it with that one? (I was actually thinking about this one but my wife may kill me).

Any advice or hint is more than welcomed
 
Old 03-19-2020, 07:29 PM   #2
phantom_cyph
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There are specific drivers you can add for Broadcom from SBo. Have you tried them?

http://slackbuilds.org/result/?search=Broadcom&sv=14.2
 
Old 04-10-2020, 04:59 AM   #3
LordAnta
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Registered: Apr 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phantom_cyph View Post
There are specific drivers you can add for Broadcom from SBo. Have you tried them?

http://slackbuilds.org/result/?search=Broadcom&sv=14.2
Unfortunately there were of no help for my device.
But apparently I just needed to do ifconfig wlan0 up and afterwards I could scan and connect to my Wifi networks. That what happens when you get too used with only one OS.
 
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