# I cannot get brcmsmac to work anymore. [SOLVED]

## cravengemetzel

Since kernel >3.5.2-gentoo-sources I have been unable to get a wlan0 interface with the brcmsmac opensource driver for my BCM4313 card. There used to be no issue whatsoever, and I have spent dozens of hours trying to solve this issue.

Currenty I am on a chroot from my Debian system, which is the only way that I can access my wireless network. I've tried recompiling my kernel with genkernel and what SHOULD be the proper settings for my system. I am lost. I tried the proprietary broadcom-sta as well, and was not able to get it to work (which it always used to work). I've tried installing these drivers in a proper booted gentoo system, after a fresh kernel recompile either from chroot or my gentoo system. I've tried copying the firmware needed for the brcmsmac driver from /lib/firmware/brcm to /usr/src/3.x/firmware/brcm but got an error saying that the drivers cannot be loaded due to "incompatible binary format". I assume they shoud be -bin format, but they are .fw format.

I can give thorough specifications of my system via the inxi script upon request (its output is much more human-readable than lspci).Last edited by cravengemetzel on Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## DONAHUE

```
emerge linux-firmware
```

 IMHO best way to get firmware for in kernel modules.

assume your menuconfig is: *Quote:*   

> [*] Networking support  --->
> 
> -*-   Wireless  --->
> 
>  --- Wireless                                                                
> ...

 lsmod includes *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Device Drivers  --->
> 
> [*] Network device support  ---> 
> ...

 lsmod output includes?  *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> bcma                   
> 
> brcmsmac              
> ...

 but not wl or b43 or b43legacy or ssb? 

Assuming neither ifconfig nor ifconfig -a shows wlan0; does lspci -k show "Kernel driver in use:" or "Kernel modules:" ?

What does dmesg have?

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## cravengemetzel

Thank you! I have no idea what was wrong with my system, but I set the options in the kernel menuconfig as those that you provided, and then I disabled "build in-kernel firmware blobs" to allow firmware access via userspace rather than kernel, compiled, rebooted, and was amazed that my problem was solved so easily. 

The Gentoo community is the best. (:

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