Mac Wi-fi for Ubuntu(broadcom for Mac-mini2014 and macbook pro 2014)

Apple Macbook 1707

I had the problem on my old i7 MacBook Pro 2016 (MacBookPro13,3), running Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS. The Macbook did have WiFi, could detect access points, etc., but simply wouldn’t accept the password and would refuse to connect, asking me for the password over and over again.

So I set out to fix it and found this post. I’ll give my experiences.

I took the exact following steps in a shell, as per the recommendations:

To do so, open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the following commands:


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt update
sudo update-pciids
sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer
sudo reboot

After reboot, typed:

sudo iwconfig wlp3s0 txpower 10dBm

Connected, and it worked, my password was accepted and I had the internet connection working fine.
Then I did what phpmaven did, because I wanted this to be permanent (but using vi, I’m a vi-man ;)):


sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/set-wifi-power.service

Entered following:


[Unit]
Description=Set Wi-Fi transmit power
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/sbin/iwconfig wlp3s0 txpower 10dBm
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enabled the service:


sudo systemctl enable set-wifi-power.service

 

Apple Macbook 1512

Install wifi

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/175810/how-to-install-broadcom-bcm4360-on-debian-on-macbook-pro

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-*
sudo modprobe wl
echo "wl" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Do not forget the -a in the tee command or you will overwrite the whole file!!

If it doesn’t work right away, reboot and it should be fine.

 

Mac Mini 2014

This is because MacBook Pro uses a Broadcom Wifi driver which is not open source and so you will have to download and install it yourself.

To do so, open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl brcmfmac brcmsmac bcma
sudo modprobe wl

Note: for this a working internet connection is required.

Source: WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx from the official Ubuntu documentation.

IF did not help – try

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source