Hi, I installed ubuntu server on a mac mini late 2012, and I have now (as expected) a problem with the firmware for the Broadcom network adapter / wifi card.
I could install those firmware quite easily with the package firmware-b43-installer
but I obviously cannot use apt
to download and install this package.
Then I thought to manually download the package from another computer and install it manually in Ubuntu. I saved the .deb
into a USB stick and tried to install it, but this package depends on other packages that are not installed on the machine.
Then I thought “ok, I’ll do the same for the dependencies and I will install the manually before install the firmware-b43-installer
”.
The problem is, of course, that also those packages depends on something else.
I don’t think is a good idea to go down into the dependency hole and look manually for all the depndendencies of the dependencies… there is a more efficient way to do this? There is a way to download a package with its recursive dependencies?
Or somebody installed already Ubuntu (or a debian based distro) on a mac mini with Broadcom chip that can put me on the right direction?
Thanks a lot.
Sure, current Debian 12 should include drivers for that chip. Pick some large install media and it should be there. Since the packages are sorted by popularity and that firmware is popular the first DVD or BL should include it.
This is incorrect, that firmware is not included in the installer (for legal reasons, probably).
firmware-b43-installer
is just a script. It downloads some driver from a website and extracts the firmware blobs from that driver using another utility calledb43-fwcutter
. The package description for that reads: