You are using the b43 driver from linux-2.6.24 If you are using the b43 driver from linux-2.6.24, follow these instructions. Use version 011 of b43-fwcutter. Download, extract the b43-fwcutter tarball and build it: wget http://bu3sch.de/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2 tar xjf b43-fwcutter-011.tar.bz2 cd b43-fwcutter-011 make cd .. Use version 4.80.53.0 of Broadcom's proprietary driver. Download and extract the firmware from this driver tarball: export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware" wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2 tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2 cd broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod ../../b43-fwcutter-011/b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" wl_apsta.o Note that you must adjust the FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR path to your distribution. The standard place where firmware is installed to is /lib/firmware. However some distributions put firmware in a different place.