brcmfmac

brcmfmac

[Andrew Wong]

The Guix installer does not recognize the Broadcom BCM43602 card used in the MacBook Pro 12,1 as compatible with free software (issuing a warning), despite this card being compatible with the free brcmfmac driver[1].

Even with the driver loaded, the installer still claims it won’t work, and at the network selection part, the installer claims an error has occurred whenever a network requires login.

Does anyone have experience with this card? Or perhaps this is a bug in the installer?

[1] https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/brcm80211

Re: brcmfmac

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

Hello,

Andrew Wong <brosasaki@gmail.com> writes:
> The Guix installer does not recognize the Broadcom BCM43602 card used
> in the MacBook Pro 12,1 as compatible with free software (issuing a
> warning), despite this card being compatible with the free brcmfmac
> driver

<https://wiki.debian.org/brcmfmac> says BCM43602 requires non-free
firmware.

Regards,
Florian

Re: brcmfmac

[Andrew Wong]

> BCM43602 requires non-free firmware. —Florian
Thank you for your clarification. I’ve been using an installation image with a firmware package installed that should provide that. To be sure that this is a downstream issue, could anyone verify that the installer is normally able to connect to WiFi networks that require login?

Also, would a properly functioning WiFi card be listed as an “ethernet” connection? I ask, because the installer allows me to scan for and detect networks, but entering ‘ip address’ in a TTY only shows a loopback and and ethernet device.

My apologies if it’s not appropriate to ask for support for this issue here.

Re: brcmfmac

[Andrew Wong]

I have done some further research on this issue and have determined that
it is both an upstream and non-free issue, so it doesn’t belong here.
For posterity, however, I have found that:

- The WiFi card _is_ the “ethernet” device seen in ‘ip address’.
- The brcmfmac driver searches for the following missing files in the
  firmware directory:

   1. brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt
   
      This file can be found in the attachments of this thread [1],
      where others encountering this issue made it via
      reverse-engineering.
      
   2, brcmfmac43602-pcie.Apple Inc-<product name>.txt
   3. brcmfmac43602-pcie.Apple Inc-<product name>.bin
      Where <product name> is in my case ‘MacBookPro-12,1’.
      
      These files are indicated to be searched for and missing by dmesg
      [2], but I have no idea where these would be found. I’d guess that
      some more “user-friendly” distros would ship them, so I’ll start
      the search with their install images. Again, if the .txt file’s
      licensing is OK, it should be in the libre kernel, I think?

I’m going to try to write a package that includes these missing files.
If anyone has any recommendations of relevant mailing lists or resources
for this problem, I would be very appreciative.

[1] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=193121
[2] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1217400/how-can-i-solve-problems-\
    from-dual-boot-on-macbookproubuntu-wifi