The firmware is necessary to run such a card under linux using the b43 or b43legacy driver. Download bcm43xx firmware packages for centos, opensuse, pclinuxos. Direct install expert download show b43 fwcutter for other distributions. Developed at hardware sources inherited from project opensuse. The linux kernel comes with the brcm80211 driver by default. As root enter following command i have added usr in front of the command since in my opensuse 10. Then you must extract the firmware from that broadcom driver by using b43fwcutter or bcm43xxfwcutter and install it in the special directory for firmware. Download b43 fwcutter packages for alpine, alt linux, arch linux, centos, debian, fedora, freebsd, kaos, mageia, openmandriva, opensuse, pclinuxos, slackware, ubuntu. With fedora 10 and above, you should install wget and the b43fwcutter tool. Download b43fwcutter packages for alpine, alt linux, arch linux, centos, debian, fedora, freebsd, kaos, mageia, openmandriva, opensuse, pclinuxos. Then you must extract the firmware from that broadcom driver by using b43 fwcutter or bcm43xxfwcutter and install it in the special directory for firmware. With working internet access, run the following commands. Next use the instructions here, skipping b43 fwcutter installation part. This package contains the bcm43xxfwcutter tool which is used to extract firmware for the broadcom network devices, from the official windows, macos or linux drivers.