Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found

I recently installed Fedora 13 (x86_64) on a Dell Vostro 1000 laptop and ran into some problems with my wireless connection.

The wireless card I had in my laptop is (lspci | grep 802):
05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01).

The driver module that is loaded for this device is "b43". In the /var/log/messages, I found out the following messages related to this module::

May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1: Broadcom 4312 WLAN found (core revision 15)
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: Registered led device: b43-phy1::tx
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: Registered led device: b43-phy1::rx
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: Registered led device: b43-phy1::radio
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PMLS, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): driver supports SSID scans (scan_capa 0x01).
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): new 802.11 WiFi device (driver: 'b43' ifindex: 4)
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): exported as /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/2
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): now managed
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): device state change: 1 -> 2 (reason 2)
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): bringing up device.
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode15.fw
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43-open/ucode15.fw
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw" not found
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 2).
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: found WiFi radio killswitch rfkill1 (at /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/0000:05:00.0/ssb0:0/ieee80211/phy1/rfkill1) (driver )
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode15.fw
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43-open/ucode15.fw
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode15.fw" not found
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode15.fw" not found
May 29 09:48:28 laptop kernel: b43-phy1 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: starting -> ready
May 29 09:48:28 laptop NetworkManager[1193]: (wlan0): device state change: 2 -> 3 (reason 42)



This seems to be a well known problem. As the message suggested, I went to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 and followed the section "You are using the b43 driver from linux-2.6.25 or newer" since Fedora 13 had (uname -r) 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 kernel in it.

Since the "b43-fwcutter" is already installed, I just had to run:

export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver

sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" wl_apsta_mimo.o

Doing so, the files "/lib/firmware/b43/ucode15.fw", "/lib/firmware/b43/lp0initvals15.fw", "/lib/firmware/b43/lp0bsinitvals15.fw" appeared on my computer. As the name suggests the "b43-fwcutter" cuts these firmware files from the drivers distributed by Broadcom and places them in /lib/firmware/b43.


After the required firmware is installed, just reload the b43 drivers (modprobe b43) or just restart the laptop and you should have the wireless card working :).