19
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) by muhyb@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/38558693

We have a Macbook Air mid 2013 and no matter what distro I tried, making wi-fi work was pain due to Broadcom drivers and not having ethernet port. Basically had to install the drivers via phone tethering.

However, probably because of the drivers, there are certain problems like disconnecting out of blue or really slow connection or cannot reconnect unless reboot the PC.

So I want to ask, if you have this Macbook and have Linux installed, which distro you're using it with? How is it?

Recently I installed Bazzite on a home computer and printers, Xbox controller, iPhone connection, everything the owners need worked out of the box. I'm wondering, would it also work fine with this Macbook too?


Edit: I added these to a blocklist, which I created here >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf

This is for BCM4360 adapter.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist bcma
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist ssb

For now, it seems fine but need more time to see if the problems are actually gone. At least the reception issue is gone I guess.


Edit 2: Installed LMDE, which wi-fi was working even on live ISO. However, same problems also present here. It has dkms version of the driver but I don't sense any difference. Same connection drops, same random slowness.

Also found this thread. It describes my issues, but sadly no replies.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

@muhyb
I have a MacBook Pro 13" late-2013 running Cinnamon (Mint based I think) and I had to install some arcane binary driver package to enable WLAN. Can’t remember now which chipset and which driver but I’ll recherche and get back to you. Please ping me if there’s no answer this week.

Mint Cinnamon still isn’t the OS of choice as it confuses sleep levels on this machine.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks for the reply! Currently it seems to be fixed with blacklisting but we'll see if there will be any issues. Someone else mentioned that Mint can install required drivers on its drivers program (by connecting the Macbook via phone tethering).

Could you perhaps check which adapter your Macbook has? The one we have has BCM4360.

[-] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

@muhyb
Same chip/card/module:

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

… and it’s a Debian bookworm/Cinnamon.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Do you have connection issues by the way? I installed LMDE today and there is a fluctuation in netspeed. It's fine on boot but might change after that. It drops to 2 mbit/s.

[-] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 2 points 19 hours ago

@muhyb
Nope. Maybe a problem caused by silently dying hardware? Those tiny Bluetooth/WLAN combi cards do that sometimes …
For replacements, take a look at eBay, for example. IFixit has decend instructions (it’s simple).

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago

Possible but I don't think that would be it since it was perfectly fine when running MacOS. I also checked an adapter replacement video and it seems quite easy, just in case if I need it (hopefully not). So thanks for the recommendation.

By the way, I checked from kernel-org and it says BCM4360 is not supported.

When I check the which module is loaded dmesg | grep -i wlan says it's BCM43a0.

However, lspci -nn | grep -i network says it's BCM4360. Is this the problem? I also checked this on live ISO EndeavourOS and got the same result.

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
19 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

9668 readers
371 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS