Ancient laptop seeks Broadcom drivers solution

[Jingleman1]

I have installed AntiX on my old but loved HP Mini 1100 110 and the Broadcom drivers, or lack of, are giving me hell. All is fine apart from I am unable to use wifi. I believe this is a well-known problem with Linux. No doubt you can show me how to load the drivers onto this little 32 bit machine. But, before I do that, would it be easier just to install a different Linux distro which has all the Broadcom drivers that I need ready installed? Failing that, please point me to the Broadcom drivers which I understand are available. Somewhere.

 

[PuppyHome]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Broadcom is generally unsupported on most modern Linux distributions as far as I know. AntiX for sure. The only distro's I know that would support it is Mint 22 (since we don't know the specs of your machine it is hard to tell if that machine would run it well). Mint 22 has a driver manager which should provide the necessary driver. Even installed your machine could be lagging when it comes to internet use. It'd be slow. Parrot Home worked for me with Broadcom in the past, can't really tell what the situation is as of this point in time.

Options: Download your needed driver from their website OR use an WiFi adapter. TP-Link usually does the job and will set you back about 10 bucks.

 

[dos2unix]

Fedora has great broadcom support.

 

[PuppyHome]

Fedora has great broadcom support.

Didn't know that, never used Fedora. Live an learn.

 

[Jingleman1]

Didn't know that, never used Fedora. Live an learn.

Thanks for your helpful reply. However, Dr AI says Fedora is not recommended for 32 bit boxes.

 

[Jingleman1]

Fedora has great broadcom support.

Thanks for your helpful reply. However, Dr AI tells me that Fedora is not recommended for 32 bit boxes.

 

[Jingleman1]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Broadcom is generally unsupported on most modern Linux distributions as far as I know. AntiX for sure. The only distro's I know that would support it is Mint 22 (since we don't know the specs of your machine it is hard to tell if that machine would run it well). Mint 22 has a driver manager which should provide the necessary driver. Even installed your machine could be lagging when it comes to internet use. It'd be slow. Parrot Home worked for me with Broadcom in the past, can't really tell what the situation is as of this point in time.

Options: Download your needed driver from their website OR use an WiFi adapter. TP-Link usually does the job and will set you back about 10 bucks.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did purchase a little bitty box wifi adapter from eBay but it did not work. So I shall check out TP Link option. Most helpful.

 

[kc1di]

Thanks for your helpful reply. However, Dr AI says Fedora is not recommended for 32 bit boxes.

Mint no longer supports 32 bit either. best chance is antix or MX if you can go to a terminal and type this commad and post the results back here it would help us to help you.

inxi -Nn

The broadcom-wl driver will work with most broadcom cards so need B43 firmware. Also Debian offers 32 still. Not sure if they offer a broadcom driver in 32 bit Though. Also you would need a Lan connection to install them.

 

[PuppyHome]

Thanks for your helpful reply. However, Dr AI says Fedora is not recommended for 32 bit boxes.

32 bit? I think you are in trouble here.

 

[Jingleman1]

Thanks for the welcome and the speedy and helpful replies. It is getting late in the UK right now so I shall return to this issue on the morrow, when my 32 bit brain cell has been rebooted.

 

[dos2unix]

Fedora is not recommended for 32 bit boxes.

I missed that part. It's true.

 

[Brickwizard]

Open the Antix software repository, search for Broadcom FW cutter and install , it will select and build the correct drivers for your chipset [provided they are still on file] oh you will need alternative means to connecting to the net

 

[Brickwizard]

It is getting late in the UK right now so I shall return to this issue on the morrow,

Getting that way myself, will be around from about 5-6 am our time

oh and welcome to the clan

 

[Jingleman1]

Getting that way myself, will be around from about 5-6 am our time

oh and welcome to the clan

Thank you very much Mr Wizard and to all the other responders for their quick and helpful replies.

 

[osprey]

I have installed AntiX on my old but loved HP Mini 1100 110 and the Broadcom drivers, or lack of, are giving me hell. All is fine apart from I am unable to use wifi. I believe this is a well-known problem with Linux. No doubt you can show me how to load the drivers onto this little 32 bit machine. But, before I do that, would it be easier just to install a different Linux distro which has all the Broadcom drivers that I need ready installed? Failing that, please point me to the Broadcom drivers which I understand are available. Somewhere.

Since antix is debian based, this page: https://wiki.debian.org/wl, covers how to support broadcom in detail.

 

[909mjolnir]

I don't know if anybody mentioned this already or not, but USB wifi devices can sometimes come to the rescue if you hunt down the linux compatible ones. It totally sidesteps the internal chip problem/solution, but it'd be a path to wifi (if and when it works).

 

[piorunz]

You can always open the laptop and inspect the WiFi card. With a little bit of luck, you can replace it with Intel chip. I did that on old Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop. Ended up using it on OpenBSD which have very limited WiFi support, but thanks to £5 WiFi swap, I had internet there out of the box.

Attached photo of one of these WiFi cards. Check form factor once you get to yours.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@Fae3iSUx , I've put a Like on your Post - now if you could visit your Account and modify your age that would be appreciated.

I don't care if you are coy about your age (just blank it out), but putting a bogus figure just skews our stats, and we need those to attract advertising revenue that this site relies on.

TIA

Wizard

 

[Brickwizard]

I did that on old Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.

I ran a 1545 on Linux from 2012 [when it was given to me broken], up to when it died as a laptop a few months back and never had a problem with the BCM43 Wi-Fi,

 

[piorunz]

@Fae3iSUx , I've put a Like on your Post - now if you could visit your Account and modify your age that would be appreciated.

I don't care if you are coy about your age (just blank it out), but putting a bogus figure just skews our stats, and we need those to attract advertising revenue that this site relies on.

TIA

Wizard

No problem, I will do that.

EDIT: Tried to change my DOB - it's not possible. My age is already entered as 01/01/1900.


Date of birth
Jan 1, 1900
Once your birthday has been entered, it cannot be changed. Please contact an administrator if it is incorrect.


You can go ahead and change my DOB to something more modern I don't mind.