E: Unable to locate package firmware-b43-installer?

Question

I have a laptop that I installed Debian(buster) onto that has no GUI also known as (CLI). But for some reason, I can't install firmware-b43-installer it comes up with this error (E: Unable to locate package firmware-b43-installer) I have a BCM4312 network chip. I followed this tutorial on how to install the firmware https://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx I looked around for a solution for hours but couldn't find a working one. I also downloaded a non-official iso from https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/10.7.0+nonfree/amd64/bt-cd/

but when I made a bootable USB with it and installed Debian it seemed like nothing was changed from the original one, the firmware wasn't installed. I have installed wpasupplicant, wireless-tools, network-manager to see if the firmware was installed but if I typed nmcli device wifi list nothing would come up! so clearly this is a firmware issue.

Answer 1

After some digging around I have found a method that works! this method only works for these Broadcom wireless network cards :BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-, BCM4321-, BCM4322-, BCM43142-, BCM43224-, BCM43225-, BCM43227-, BCM43228-, BCM4331-, BCM4360-, and BCM4352-

If you don't have an ethernet connection to start with then you have to download wpasupplicant, wireless-tools and network-manager then transfer it over to the Debian machine using a usb drive then you can connect any android device and theater wifi!

figure out what WLAN card you have to see if it's compatible with this method:

lspci -nn | grep Network

The output look something like this

then install all the required packages:

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

sudo apt-get install wireless-tools

sudo apt-get install network-manager

systemctl enable NetworkManager

systemctl start NetworkManager

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

systemctl reboot

After restart edit sources.list using nano and add main contrib non-free on every line. (press CTRL+O to save and CTRL+X to exit) sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

And reboot the computer again (systemctl reboot)

Install Broadcom drivers

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

sudo modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac bcma

sudo modprobe wl

After all that is done you will have wifi! to see all the available connections in your area type nmcli device wifi list (if you don't see anything then the installation wasn't done properly)

To connect to a network type this nmcli device wifi connect SSID password SSID_password

for example: nmcli device wifi connect home-net password homenet123