Installing BCM4360 Driver on Debian

Prerequisites

  • Ensure your system is updated.
  • You need to have sudo privileges.

Step-by-Step Installation

  1. Add Non-Free Repository Open the sources list file: 
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add non-free to the end of the lines for your Debian version. For example, for Debian 12 “Bookworm”:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free-firmware non-free

Save and exit the editor.

Update Package List

Run the following command to update the package list:

sudo apt-get update

Install Required Packages

Install the necessary packages for the BCM4360 driver:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms

Load the Driver

After installation, load the driver:

sudo modprobe wl

Check Driver Status

Verify that the driver is loaded correctly:

sudo dkms status

Using ifupdown and wpasupplicant

These instructions require and make use of ifupdown, iproute2, wpasupplicant (For WPA2 support), iw, and wireless-tools. Ensure you have all of these installed before continuing. You also might be interested in the instructions below that only use ifupdown and wpasupplicant, along with using a more advanced configuration. See #wpasupplicant

Find your wireless interface and bring it up: (NOTE: wlp2s0 is an example, you will need to make sure to use the correct device name for your system)

# ip a
# iw dev
# ip link set wlp2s0 up

Scan for available networks and get network details (If you already know your wifi network id/ESSID, you can skip this step):

$ su -l
# iwlist scan

Now edit /etc/network/interfaces. The required configuration is much dependent on your particular setup. The following example will work for most commonly found WPA/WPA2 networks:

# my wifi device
allow-hotplug wlp2s0
iface wlp2s0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid ESSID
        wpa-psk PASSWORD

Bring up your interface and verify the connection:

# ifup wlp2s0
# iw wlp2s0 link
# ip a

You can manually bring your interface up and down with the ifup and ifdown commands. If you added allow-hotplug wlp2s0 as in the example above, the interface will be brought up automatically at boot.

For further information on available configuration options, see man interfaces, man iw, man wireless and /usr/share/doc/wireless-tools/README.Debian.