In this , we'll perform the installation of the official Broadcom hybrid Linux wireless driver. Using a Broadcom wireless USB adapter gives us the greatest possibility of success in terms of getting our wireless USB access point to work on BackTrack 5. For the rest of the recipes in this book, we will assume installation of the Broadcom wireless drivers.
An Internet connection is required to complete this recipe.
How to do it...
Let's begin the process of installing the Broadcom drivers:
1. Open a terminal window and download the appropriate Broadcom driver from http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php:
2. Extract the downloaded driver by using the following script:
mkdir broadcom
tar xvfz hybrid-portsrc_x86_64-v5_100_82_112.tar.gz -C /tmp/broadcom
3. Modify the wl_cfg80211.c file as there's a bug in version 5.100.82.112 that prevents compiling the code under kernel version 2.6.39:
vim /tmp/broadcom/src/wl/sys/wl_cfg80211.c
In the file, the following line at line number 1814 needs to be replaced:
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE > KERNEL_VERSION(2, 6, 39)
It needs to be replaced with:
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2, 6, 39)
Once done, save the changes.
4. Compile the code:
make clean
make
make install
5. Update the dependencies:
depmod -a
6. Find loaded modules by issuing the following command:
lsmod | grep b43\|ssb\|bcma
7. Remove the modules found by executing the following command:
rmmod <module>b43
Where <module> could be: b43 or ssb or bcma.
8. Blacklist the modules to prevent them from loading at system startup:
echo "blacklist <module>" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Where <module> could be: b43 or ssb or bcma or wl.
9. Finally, add the new module to the Linux kernel to make it part of the boot process:
modprobe wl