MacBook Pro's wifi doesn't work on a fresh Pop!_OS install
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I have a MacBook Pro 16, and decided to install
Pop!_OS
on it.
My system info is:
OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS x86_64
Host: MacBookPro16,2 1.0
Kernel: 6.2.6-76060206-generic
My Network controller is a Broadcom Wireless Network Adapter (Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4364 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
). I found the a [helpful page](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/broadcom_wireless) on the ArchWiki.
Running sudo lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
to figure out which drivers I need yields the following:
e5:00.0 Network controller : Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4364 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:4464] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. BCM4364 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [106b:07bf]
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 255
Memory at 81400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=32K]
Memory at 81000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=4M]
Capabilities: Power Management version 3
Capabilities: MSI: Enable- Count=1/16 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: Vendor Specific Information: Len=44
Capabilities: [ac] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [13c] Device Serial Number 1d-b9-fb-ff-ff-ba-3c-22
Capabilities: Power Budgeting
Capabilities: Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [1b0] Latency Tolerance Reporting
Capabilities: Physical Resizable BAR
Capabilities: L1 PM Substates
Kernel modules: brcmfmac, wl
To Quote the archwiki:
> The kernel contains two built-in open-source drivers: brcmfmac for native FullMAC and brcmsmac for mac80211-based SoftMAC. They should be automatically loaded when booting.
So it should work (?) But it doesn't.
When looking at the blacklisted kernel modules, I found brcmfmac
to be blacklisted.
pop-os:~$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf
# Warning: This file is autogenerated by bcmwl. All changes to this file will be lost.
blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist bcma
I commented it out, saved, and ran sudo update-initramfs -u
, but didn't help.
Because the Network Card seems to accept the wl
driver, I checked if it is loaded ($ lsmod | grep wl
), and it seems to be loaded.
wl 6488064 0
cfg80211 1241088 1 wl
brcmfmac however, is not loaded ($ lsmod | grep brcmfmac
yields nothing).
running $ sudo modprobe brcmfmac
loads the module.
$ lsmod | grep brcmfmac
brcmfmac 503808 0
brcmutil 20480 1 brcmfmac
cfg80211 1241088 2 wl,brcmfmac
That's certainly cool, my wifi still doesn't work though.
At this point I have no more idea what to do.
Here some more detailed network information:
$ sudo lshw -c network
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: BCM4364 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:e5:00.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:81400000-81407fff memory:81000000-813fffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 7
bus info: usb@2:1.4
logical name: enx00e04c680604
serial: 00:e0:4c:68:06:04
size: 1Gbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8152 driverversion=v1.12.13 duplex=full firmware=rtl8153a-4 v2 02/07/20 ip=192.168.0.129 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
And that's how the not working wifi looks in the settings:

Asked by Hazel
(31 rep)
Jul 24, 2023, 09:25 AM
Last activity: Jul 24, 2023, 02:17 PM
Last activity: Jul 24, 2023, 02:17 PM