For anyone running Fedora on a lightweight window manager like Hyprland, getting Wi-Fi to work can sometimes feel like an uphill battle. I recently faced the classic "No Wi-Fi Adapter Found" issue, specifically with the Broadcom BCM43142 chipset, and after a lot of trial and error, I got it working. Here's a comprehensive breakdown of what I did, what went wrong, and how I eventually fixed it.

Step 1: Identifying the Problem

When I opened my system, the network icon was missing, and tools like nmtui or nmcli didn’t list any Wi-Fi interfaces. The command:

lspci | grep -i network

showed:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)

This confirmed that my system could see the Wi-Fi card, but the driver wasn’t loaded.

Step 2: Enabling RPM Fusion Repositories

To get the necessary drivers, I first enabled RPM Fusion:

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Links:

Step 3: Installing the Broadcom Drivers

The BCM43142 uses the proprietary wl driver, so I needed to install the Broadcom wl driver package provided by RPM Fusion:

sudo dnf install akmod-wl

However, after installation, I ran into this error:

modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found in directory /lib/modules/6.x.x-xxx.fcxx.x86_64

Step 4: Kernel Version Mismatch Troubles

The main issue here was kernel version mismatch. My system was running kernel 6.11.4-301.fc41.x86_64, but the akmod-wl module hadn’t been built for it. The build tools couldn't find:

/usr/src/kernels/6.11.4-301.fc41.x86_64/
/lib/modules/6.11.4-301.fc41.x86_64/build/

To fix this, I tried:

sudo dnf install kernel-devel-$(uname -r) kernel-headers-$(uname -r)

But sometimes they weren’t available in the Fedora repos, especially during kernel updates. In such cases, I had to manually search RPMs from Koji:

I downloaded matching versions of kernel-devel and kernel-headers manually:

sudo rpm -i kernel-devel-6.11.4-301.fc41.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i kernel-headers-6.11.4-301.fc41.x86_64.rpm

Alternatively, I also tested the 6.12.8-200.fc41.x86_64 version by downloading it manually:

https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/kernel/6.12.8/200.fc41/x86_64/kernel-devel-6.12.8-200.fc41.x86_64.rpm
https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/kernel-headers/6.12.8/200.fc41/x86_64/kernel-headers-6.12.8-200.fc41.x86_64.rpm

Step 5: Resolving Other Package Issues

During the troubleshooting, I encountered this error repeatedly:

Status code: 404 for https://windsurf-stable.codeiumdata.com/... (IP: 104.21.95.28)

This was due to a broken Windsurf repository. I removed it with:

sudo rm /etc/yum.repos.d/windsurf*.repo

Step 6: Forcing the Driver Build

After resolving the kernel header issue and removing broken repos, I forced the driver module to build:

sudo akmods --force
sudo modprobe wl

Once the wl module was inserted successfully, Wi-Fi became available instantly.

Step 7: GUI Wi-Fi Management in Hyprland

Since I use Hyprland (a minimal Wayland compositor), I didn't have a full desktop environment with a network manager by default. To make Wi-Fi management easier, I installed:

sudo dnf install NetworkManager network-manager-applet

Then I launched the applet:

nm-applet &

I added this to my Hyprland startup script to load automatically on boot.

Troubles You Might Face

  • Wrong kernel-devel version: Without exact matching versions, akmods won't build drivers.
  • RPM Fusion repo not enabled: Make sure RPM Fusion (free and nonfree) is enabled.
  • Wayland environment with no network applet: If using Hyprland or Sway, manually install and start a network manager applet.
  • Broken repos (e.g., Windsurf errors): Disable or delete any custom repos that are causing 404 errors during dnf operations.
  • Manual download of RPMs from Koji: You may have to manually install kernel-devel and kernel-headers if they aren’t in your enabled repos.
  • Kernel compatibility: Sometimes a newer kernel may not yet have matching driver support. You might need to temporarily downgrade or switch to a compatible kernel.

Conclusion

Getting Broadcom Wi-Fi to work on Fedora, especially under Hyprland, requires matching the correct kernel modules and using RPM Fusion's akmod-wl package. But once it's configured properly, it just works — even in a lightweight, customized Linux environment.

If you're facing similar issues, follow the steps above, and don’t hesitate to explore kernel switching or rebuilding modules with akmods --force.

Helpful Links I Used